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Welcome to LA Stories, a section where I interview people from all walks of life that have made LA their home.
During the pandemic, LA experienced a 180-degree change in the food scene. Pop-up restaurants became all the rage thanks to Instagram. Pre-orders became the new norm when trying out a pop-up restaurant and people became more compassionate than ever to support small businesses.
At the delivery date, people would stand in line 6 feet from each other with their masks on, waiting to pick-up their orders. There are way too many pop-up businesses in LA to list that were born out of the pandemic. But this particular one caught my eye: imagine going to a stranger’s apartment to pick up pizza. That’s what Sean, creator of Secret Pizza, started doing in September 2020.
When Sean first started Secret Pizza, he kept his anonymity a high priority because he didn’t want issues with management from his apartment complex. Sean didn’t even reveal his name until much later on. What has made Secret Pizza go viral in the LA food scene, besides the genius concept, is the pizza itself. But more on that later in the interview.
In 2022, Sean started doing in-person pop-ups and getting the business out of his apartment. Needless to say, the pizza is always sold-out.
I DMed Sean to see if he would be interested in being featured on my blog, and he said yes! All I knew about Sean was that he was a New Jersey native. Besides delving into the pizza, I wanted to pick his brain on the LA pizza scene. What does he think about it? What makes his pizza more special than the hundreds of other LA pizza joints? Keep on reading!
Can you tell me the backstory of Secret Pizza and why you started it?
Sure! So after a life of loving pizza, and about a decade of honing pizza making skills in my home kitchen, I suddenly found myself a high-risk patient during a pandemic, which meant I was spending most of my days in my apartment. This was when you could barely find flour in supermarkets, but a friend of mine mentioned that he bought a 50 lb bag online. A few days later, I had a big bag of flour, and each time I fired up the oven to make pizza for myself I’d make a few extras for friends. Prior to COVID I worked as a musician, so money was tight. Having a new outlet and a way to potentially earn a few dollars was a huge relief to me. I started an Instagram and I was able to find a lot of east coast transplants and local pizza fans, who got excited about the type of pizza that I make.
You’re originally from New Jersey, so when did you move to LA?
Yes, I am from NJ and like everyone from there, I have way too much pride and love for my state! I grew up in the suburbs, in Essex County, which for those who don’t suffer from excessive Jersey Pride, is just a short ride to Manhattan. I moved to LA in early 2019.
What do you think of the pizza scene here in LA and why do you think people are so harsh when it comes to LA pizza?
Ok this is gonna be a long one, but let’s start with two important facts:
1) I think that the pizza scene in LA has some really great pizza, and the reputation of LA having no good pizza is just because the public perception hasn’t caught up with the reality yet.
2) There is plenty of terrible pizza in NYC and the surrounding areas.
Now, the reason I’m going to give a long answer here is because people don’t understand where this harshness comes from. And it’s quite simply a baseline cultural difference.
Where I’m from — not even in the middle of NYC — out in the suburbs of NJ, you’ll find 5-6 mom-and-pop pizzerias in a one square mile town AND you’ll have a couple of the big chains on top of that. That is a LOT of pizza and it means two things. It raises the bar for competing businesses and also indicates that a lot of people eat a lot of pizza.
Go to NYC or Long Island and it’s just pizza everywhere. Some of the very oldest of these places got started in the very early 1900s, so the pizza obsession is generations deep. Once Frank Mastro began the earliest gas oven pizza franchise in New York, you had a food that was just beginning its boom of popularity and a business that was providing careers for the influx of Italian immigrant families. There is a lot of tradition that gets passed down in these older pizza places in the form of craft and technique, but also, there are all of the people who eat that pizza and have particular taste preferences because of it.
So, when you go anywhere outside of that area of the country, there’s a certain disconnect that you get from that really immersive experience, where pizza is everywhere — and everyone has strong opinions about pizza.
Even though LA and other places have some incredible pizza to try, you don’t have that density of old pizza places like you do in the NYC area.
What are your must-go-to pizza joints in LA and why?
My current favorites are Quarter Sheets in Echo Park and Apollonia’s, where the vodka square slice especially blows my mind. But my first order of business when I moved to LA was to find pizza, bagels, and chicken parm. I’ll always have a special place for Mulberry St. Pizza and Pizza Wagon of Brooklyn for being the first places to scratch my itch for NY-style pizza. I recently had some good slices from Prime Pizza in that style and look forward to getting back there, too. I’m also excited to try Hot Tongue Pizza, an all vegan spot that just opened in Silver Lake where the vegan cheese actually looks delicious for once!
How about your favorite pizza places on the East Coast?
On the East Coast, I’d have to say NY Pizza Suprema, Williamsburg Pizza, and Pizza Town USA. Those are spots that are always on the top of my list for that classic slice. For squares, I like L&B Spumoni Gardens, Nino’s in Harrison, NJ, and Bruno’s in Clifton, NJ. People always talk about the greatness of Difara (RIP Dom Demarco), but I never hear people say how great the square slice was there! A little more char on the bottom than most and the basil and olive oil — I don’t know why more people don’t talk about that, so I’m doing it for them. I love Sally’s in New Haven, NJ bar pies, and so many other pizzas, and then there’s still so many I haven’t gotten to try yet.
What are your favorite toppings on a pizza?
I am not anti-toppings, but I do tend to keep it pretty minimal. I think the plain slice (that’s NJ talk for what a lot of this country would call a “cheese slice”) is a sacred standard for judging what a particular pizza really is, but pepperoni is my all time favorite topping if I had to pick just one. My favorite non-traditional topping is a chicken cutlet for a chicken parm pie.
How did you learn to make pizza?
I am still learning, but the process was similar when I started to where it is now. I used a mix of trial and error, the internet (reading and watching videos), and just watching people work at my favorite pizza spots. Back in NJ, we’d invite friends over and I’d just make a whole bunch of pizzas a few times a year. So a lot of it is learning by doing, eating more pizza, watching more people make pizza, reading more, etc. It’s a cycle and I’m still constantly learning new things.
What was it like operating Secret Pizza out of your apartment? (Space, equipment, etc)
It was certainly challenging! I started out doing one pizza at a time quite slowly, and gradually added more stones to my oven to fit in two pies at a time. The home oven can make quite a decent pizza, but the downside is that it takes a long time for the heat in the oven to recover after baking a couple of pies. The space was tight, I was mixing big batches of dough by hand, and cleaning up was a never ending chore. On top of all that, you have this slow oven so you can only make a handful of pies every night.
But all of those drawbacks aside, it was really nice to be able to do something like that at home during the height of the pandemic, and I was very grateful for all of the people who came by to support and enjoy some pizza.
For someone who’s reading this and wants to try out Secret Pizza, what is the best way to describe it?
Secret Pizza is a tribute to my favorite East Coast-style pies — they’re thin and flavorful, the crust has some crisp but a slice can be folded, and the pies are satisfyingly large. I like the pie to have a balance of sauce and cheese because it tastes and looks more attractive to me than a blanket of solid cheese on top.
You’re now doing pop-ups, which is great. How do people go about getting their pizza pie? Do they have to pre-pay in order to get it? Where do you announce the future pop-ups?
Thanks, I just did a month of weekly pop-ups at the great Pearl River Deli in Chinatown which is now fully open for business and so good!
Currently, I announce all future pop-ups via my instagram @secretpizzaLA and so far it’s always been pre-pay/pre-order to get pies, but I’m looking forward to doing a more walk-up friendly ordering method at some point down the line. I’m also looking for pizzerias that want to host a pop-up on off-days!
What does pizza mean to you?
That’s a good question. Pizza has always been special to me for as long as I can remember because it was always the food I’ve been most excited to eat and that brought me the most joy eating it. Now that pizza has also become something that I make for other people, it’s taken on so many new meanings. It has helped me to survive, pay my bills, and even pay others to help me, but it’s also put me in touch with a lot of people who just genuinely love pizza.
Just before I started Secret Pizza, the pizzas I was making for myself reminded me of home and one of the frequent and best compliments I’ve gotten from people who have eaten my pizza is that it reminds them of home. And these are people from all different states on the East Coast and some are even from Southern CA, but somehow that’s coming across through pizza.
How does it make you feel that your pizza is constantly sold out? Did you expect this when you first started Secret Pizza?
I’m so glad you asked this, because people get understandably upset sometimes that the pizza is constantly sold out. I have truly mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it’s incredibly flattering that people are excited about my pizza and that they will take time out of their day to try and get it. I never expected that kind of response.
On the other hand, I hate that people get disappointed and frustrated about not being able to get pizza. When I was doing it at home, the small oven really put a cap on how many pizzas you could make. With the recent pop-ups it’s been a little bit better, but the only real way to crank out a ton of pies every night would be to have the right equipment for the style of pizza you want to make.
When I first started Secret Pizza, I fully expected it to be friends only and eventually their friends, and I did not expect it to really become that popular. I did one night of test pies and people started posting pictures before I even was selling them and it caught on quite quickly. Then, my very first paying customer had a big social media following, as did his wife. I remember really not wanting to mess up that pie, and luckily I didn’t and their instagram story share tripled my following from 150 to 450 in about a day. So, I soon found out that people were interested in this pizza and they’re also the kind of people who will set an alarm and click to buy the pizza right when orders open up.
How many pizza styles do you offer? I saw on your IG that you also offer a homemade dessert. Can you tell us about that?
My pizza menu tends to be quite simple and traditional by default. At first, I offered only plain pies, pepperoni, and a half plain/half pep. Over time, I started rotating in other toppings as specials – mushrooms, onions, italian sausage, meatballs, and jalapenos. I had never had Jalapenos on pizza, but it was so frequently requested that I made one and found I liked it. So it has been on the menu quite regularly since then.
Rather than curating specific collections of toppings and saying “This one is The Jersey Boy — it’s got onions, sausage, and peppers”, I do it more like the old school spots I grew up with. There’s a list of toppings for that night – tell me what you want and that’s what you’ll get. Fortunately, people don’t usually overdo it and add 4-5 toppings which, in my opinion, overwhelms the pizza when you’re not working with a crust that’s thick like Domino’s.
As for desserts, I have not yet offered anything that I made myself, though I might like to do that in the future! So for now, it’s all been about collabs with local chefs, and I’ve been very fortunate to work with the talented Laura Hoang (@largwa), whose Tiramisu was featured on the menu most recently. I’m excited to see what Laura and others will bring to the dessert menu down the road.
The beverage list is usually minimal, just Topo Chico and Coke (made in Mexico), though through pop-ups beer and wine are sometimes also available!
And that is it for the menu right now, though I expect down the line I may bring my own take on garlic knots or some other snacky pizza fare.
Los Angeles
What are your favorite places in LA?
I think my favorite places are the places that are most different from NYC and NJ. Hiking in the mountains, driving through hilly neighborhoods, any place with a lot of cactuses. Having beaches with mountains is still a novel experience.
What are your favorite restaurants in LA?
This is so hard because I’ve had so much delicious food out here. Burgers Never Say Die is probably my favorite burger and fries, and the story of their start in a backyard was the first inspiration to do Secret Pizza — but if you love delicious smash burgers and also want a killer chicken sandwich, then Love Hour.
I love how many independent donut shops LA has. I recently fell in love with New’s Donuts on Pico Blvd, where they make simple classics to perfection. I’m a big fan of Lan Noodle out in Arcadia, Big Boi in Sawtelle, Hoy Ka Hollywood, Eastside Italian Deli, La Pergoletta. And I think my favorite fast food chain that you can’t get back east is El Pollo Loco.
What do you like about living in LA?
I like the weather, the variety of neighborhoods, I like that a two-hour drive can take you out to Joshua Tree, or some place very different up the coast. I’m really still getting to know LA and enjoying that about living here too.
Follow @secretpizzala to get notified of Sean’s future pop-ups!
