Plugs is The Angel’s recs column. On most Saturdays, you’ll get six picks—a restaurant, a bar, a shop, an ingredient, a person, and a treat—from someone in New York or Los Angeles who knows what they’re talking about, plus a selection of Angel-curated links. Plugs are for paid subscribers of The Angel only; upgrade your subscription to receive all six!
Plugs #104 is a special Valley edition, courtesy Sherman Oaks native Justin Bolois. I first corresponded with Justin in 2014, when he cold-emailed me to talk shop about food writing, and we’ve since criss-crossed paths from coast to coast, occasionally managing to meet for a meal when we’re in the same place at the same time. By day, Justin is the VP of Development at First We Feast, serving as executive producer of a new Hot Ones spinoff called Hot Ones Game Night, among other programs. By night, he’s the proprietor of Restaurant Relics, selling the finest vintage merch and objects from your favorite restaurants (his private L.A. showroom just opened, DM for an appointment). And he is nothing if not a proud Valley Rat, so without further ado, his 818 Plugs:
Restaurant: Barone’s
There are roughly 260 square miles of the San Fernando Valley. But within that giant sprawl, my family has only ever pledged allegiance to one pizza parlor: Barone’s. If you buy into Sam Sifton’s Pizza Cognition Theory, that means I am hopelessly enchanted by a certain genre: thin, rectangular pies cooked on sheet trays, light on the sauce, and loaded with jack cheese. The menu advertises their Neapolitan heritage, but there’s no long fermentation or cornicione crust standard of the style.
The pizza has the visual characteristics of a Midwestern bar pie, but it’s not quite thin or crispy enough to credibly pass for one. Barone’s is a mutant strain. Aaron Lindell from Quarter Sheets calls it “cafeteria pizza.” My mom, a lifelong 818er who did Billy Blanks Tae Bo in the ‘90s, calls it “bitchin’.” For 60 years, my family has remained faithful to the hamburger and onion pie, ordered “well done” for extra browning. Toppings are placed underneath the cheese, a process they call “sheeting.” We mourned the day Barone’s left its longtime location on Ventura and Hazeltine, which opened in the late ‘40s. But we breathed a sigh of relief when they found a new home at an old German restaurant, off Oxnard and Woodman. It evoked the spirit of the original: red upholstered booths, stained glass, carpet, and a no-frills bar. When my birthday rolls around every December, you’ll always find me in a corner booth.
