The Brief

The L.A. vs N.Y. rivalry may be front of mind right now (Dodgers in six btw), but let's face it, it’s always lurking in the background.

In-N-Out vs Shake Shack.

Freeway vs subway.

Malibu vs the Hamptons.

You name it, we can argue about it. So in this high stakes moment it seemed a good time to ask that vital question:

Pizza: N.Y. or L.A.?

For many years, we conceded that there was no contest (Hail New York).

But in recent years, L.A. has supercharged its pizza scene, setting the stage for a more heavyweight battle.

L.A. has the imagination to mash up its cultural influences and reinvent a culinary classic; N.Y. is determined to dig in its heels and work for perfection.

While I confess I’ve most recently been on Team L.A, the times I’ve bitten into a perfect crust at one of our excellent New York-style pizza joints could have me swayed.

It's difficult to call. I'll leave it up to you to decide.

To help I've put a list together of what I believe to be the best places to get pizza in the city — from both coasts. Try them out and see what your tastebuds tell you. And at the very least it means you'll know exactly who to order from when it's game time.

Play ball!

LaSorted’s (Silver Lake, Chinatown)

West Coast Style

Tommy and Erin Brockert started selling pizzas on the porch of their Echo Park home during the pandemic. Tommy was an out-of-work event photographer looking to earn money. Now, four-and-half years later, LaSorted’s has morphed into a successful mini-empire with the recent opening of its second location in Chinatown.

While the original Silver Lake order-at-the-counter location remains, the new digs feature a cozy sit-down restaurant chock-full of Brockett’s extensive collection of signature L.A. sports and pop culture ephemera, including a Dodgers Cabbage Patch Kid still in its box. (Not surprising given the place is named after the famed Dodgers coach).

As for the pizza, the Mamba is a great place to start, a regular cheese slice with or without pepperoni. It's named after the late Laker great Kobe Byrant, who once said he ate a pepperoni pizza before scoring 81 points in a single game in 2006.

The Mamba has its own following

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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The love of innovation is on display with the Upside Down Mamba, which is precisely what it sounds like: the cheese pizza plus toppings, flipped, with a three-cheese blend serving as its base, topped thoroughly with tomato sauce, sprinkled with flaky sea salt, and Sicilian oregano. The cooked cheese underneath the sauce forms a uniquely layered buffer, making for an exceptional texture.

Quarantine Pizza Co. (Various locations)

West Coast Style

If you like something outside the (pizza) box, check out Quarantine Pizza Co., a pizza pop-up by Brandon and Carolina Conaway. Like many who grew up in Southern California, they draw from their respective cultural backgrounds and other influences they’ve picked up along the way.

Brandon is Asian (Chinese and Vietnamese) and white. Carolina is Latina (Mexican and Colombian). Both grew up in Orange County, where they met before moving to Los Angeles for college.

The al-pastor pizza is the stuff dreams are made of — a pizza that tastes like a taco!

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Courtesy of Quarantine Pizza

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Their collective experiences have led to outstanding combinations, such as Banh Mi pies, Char siu pies, birria sausage, salsa roja, and red corn sourdough.

They can nail their version of the classics, too. When you bite into a slice of their sourdough, “Neapolitan-ish inspired," its fluffy texture is like a breath of fresh air. The outer rim of the crust features the perfect amount of “leoparding,” which occurs when the naturally fermented dough is cooked under high heat and creates little dark spots around the edges of the crust.

They've recently announced they'd be opening a brick-and-mortar location early next year, renaming themselves Wallflour Sourdough Pizza. In the meantime, you can find them regularly popping up at the El Sereno Night Market every Wednesday night and at Benny Boy Brewing in Lincoln Heights

Apollonia’s Pizza (Mid-City)

West Coast Style

If you judge Apollonia’s Pizza by its limited menu, featuring a handful of round and square pies, you may wonder if you’ve come to the right place—is this some of the best pizza in L.A.?

But you'll quickly understand after encountering the long lines outside this standing-room-only, cash-only pizzeria off Wilshire Boulevard — and taking your first bite.

Justin De Leon, owner and head pizza maker, grew up on pizza; his first job was working at a pizza restaurant when he was just 13.

I suggest you start with a traditional De Leon cheese pie slice. The chef wanted something “thin, light, and crispy.” Well, he found it. This is the cheese slice against which all others should be judged, with its well-portioned ingredients over the perfectly stretched, crispy, tasting crust, showcasing an almost zen-like attention to detail.

Some of the best pizza you can find in L.A., sold by the slice at Apollonia's Pizzeria

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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Like every great master, De Leon says he doesn’t subscribe to specific labels when describing his style of pizza. While his square pie could easily be described as a Detroit, Siciliana, or even Grandma slice, he simply calls it L.A.-style, a mixture of the multiple styles he draws from. He believes that combination gives Apollonia’s pizza its unique taste, much like the city of L.A.

Prime Pizza (various locations)

East Coast Style

With the tagline "New York style pizza made for L.A.", you shouldn’t be surprised that Prime Pizza has some excellent slice options, which is rare to find in L.A. If you’re looking for value for money, this hits the spot: the two-cheese slice combo with a drink was $10 (hello, Cheap Fast Eats!).

The two slice Combo with both cheese and pepperonis slices from Prime Pizza

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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The slice stays in its lane with a crispy crust and a respectable amount of sauce, perfect for satisfying your pizza craving in a jiff. Its original recipe was developed as an ode to N.Y., inspired by some of the great pizzerias of the Big Apple.

Despite its allegiance to the East Coast, Prime Pizza perfectly nails the vibe of an L.A. neighborhood pizza shop. It's the type of place that conjures up my middle school days, throwing back a few slices after an afternoon of skateboarding with friends, and we love it.

Milana’s (Long Beach)

East Coast Style

Milana’s proudly wears its New York heart on its sleeve, with the flatscreen on the wall showing a live feed of Times Square, and various pies named after well-known spots in the five boroughs. The standout for me is the Sheepshead Bay, made with house-made meatballs, topped with pillow-soft dollops of ricotta and sprinkled with bits of basil.

The Sheephead's Bay slice from Milana's

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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The soft creaminess of the cheese, with just a slight bit of sharp flavor, perfectly cuts through the fattiness from the sliced meatballs. It contains elements of both soft and crispy, which drives the whole thing home.

The large, chewy slice of pie has thin edges allowing for maximum foldability when consuming. It’s a beautiful thing,

Secret Pizza (Montecito Heights)

East Coast Style

A slice of New Jersey style cheese pizza from Secret Pizza

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Courtesy Secret Pizza

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New Jersey-style pizza might be a product of the Garden State, but it’s one of my favorite East Coast-style pies, New York or otherwise.

Secret Pizza was started by Sean Lango, who began cooking pizza out of his Hollywood apartment before graduating to his pizzeria in the foothills of Montecito Heights.

He calls his pizza New Jersey-style because he's from there, and wanted to protect himself from the wrath of purist New Yorkers not happy with outsiders laying claim to their turf. It's very similar to a classic NY pie; he sees it as an opportunity to highlight his home state and his love for it.

What makes his pizza so memorable? Its simplicity. The thin crust gives way to a stellar crispy underside, providing an excellent texture, topped off by a tangy sauce.

Sure, you could add different toppings, but Lango's pie, with crushed tomatoes, a small amount of mozzarella cheese, and topped with aged pecorino is perfect as it is. Sometimes, when you rely on a good, uncomplicated formula, good things happen.

Inglewood officials are working on a full rewrite of the city map for the first time in nearly 40 years, laying out how they want the city to grow and change for the next two decades.

Along part of Manchester Boulevard, city planners are setting up an option for developers to rebuild rows of small storefronts with a mix of homes and commercial space. On La Brea Avenue, south of Centinela Avenue, they envision the possibility of dense housing and business blocks as high as six stories.

Jerome Johnson, an Inglewood local, said he’s lived through three decades of change in the city. He recalled watching a “raggedy market” at the corner of La Brea and Centinela make way for the two-story shopping center that’s there today. He said the potential developments around the intersection could be a catch-22.

“There’s a shortage of housing,” Johnson said. “But you don’t want it to turn into New York City.”

It’s all part of the ongoing process for Inglewood’s new general plan, the foundational guide that governs things like what kind of buildings can be built where in the city and how they need to look. A draft land-use plan will go before the Inglewood City Council on Tuesday, then go into the environmental impact review process.

“This is really a historic milestone for the city,” Bernard McCrumby, Inglewood development services director, told The LA Local. 

McCrumby said planners are aiming to open up room for new housing and to revitalize some of the city’s flagging business corridors, without changing the city’s existing residential blocks or sacrificing the grocery stores, barbershops and local restaurants that make neighborhoods tick.

“The stadiums and arenas are here, they’re not going anywhere,” McCrumby said. “Now we can plan around those.”

The last time the city did a full update of its general plan was 1987, when horses were still racing at Hollywood Park and the “Showtime” Lakers were winning championships at the Forum. Edward Vincent Jr., the city’s first Black mayor, had only been in office for four years. 

The city has made intermittent updates to its planning guidelines since then — notably remapping a band of Inglewood along the Metro K line before it opened — but city documents indicate planners spent the past couple years working on a comprehensive rewrite. 

The new update to the general plan could set the city’s direction until 2050.

Planners hope to change some of the city’s commercial corridors into mixed-use zones that allow for housing and businesses alongside each other or even stacked on top of each other.

Those zones could go in place along Century Boulevard and Arbor Vitae Street as well as Manchester, Centinela and La Brea.

The rest of the update, McCrumby said, is aimed at lining the city’s zoning regulations up with state law and the city’s current reality on the ground.

City staff held several community meetings over the last year as they put together the draft and still aren’t done gathering feedback. 

The next year will see at least one more community meeting and a 45-day public review period, according to city documents. McCrumby said that, with the anchor of the land-use map in place, planners will continue to work on the rest of the general plan, targeting final City Council approval of the plan and accompanying environmental impact report next spring.

You can get all the details on the general plan at nextlevelinglewood.com and attend the City Council meeting at 2 p.m. on Tuesday to give a public comment.

We also want to know what you think of the proposed changes. Email isaiah@thelalocal.org with your questions or thoughts.

Students within the Los Angeles Unified School District showed improvements on state reading, math and science standardized tests for a third consecutive year, district authorities announced Tuesday.

Superintendent Andrés Chait revealed the preliminary results at the annual opening-of-schools address at East L.A.’s Garfield High School— his first as the district’s leader since the board appointed him to the job in June.

“ These are not just numbers on a page,” Chait said to an audience that included about 1,000 principals, administrators and district supporters. “They are the result of your passion, your persistence, your belief in what students can achieve. These are collective accomplishments.

"They reflect the dedication, skill, and commitment of our entire community,” he said.

Jai Gant-Leau, principal of Eagle Tree Continuation High School, said the “back-to-basics” focus of Chait’s speech was a welcome departure from the tone of recent opening addresses.

“We will continue to rise for the outcomes and expectations for the success of our students. That's the message I got,” Gant-Leau said. “Very different than the others where it was a lot of… bells and whistles.”

Why it matters

Student achievement, as measured by test scores, plummeted during the pandemic. Los Angeles Unified’s growth in 2025 outpaced the state, as test scores exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

This year the percentage of students in all grades who met or exceeded the standard are 39.7% for math, 48.3% for English and 32.1% for science. It’s unclear how this compares to students statewide because those results have yet to be released.

Challenges ahead

Chait also acknowledged the challenges posed by declining enrollment, community fears of immigration enforcement actions and proposed budget cuts.

 “The decisions will be hard, but we cannot lose sight of what defines us,” Chait said. “We are the system that lifts students to opportunity, turns potential into achievement, creates spaces of belonging, healing, growth.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

We hope you’ve gotten used to the hot weather, because it’s going to be here for a while.

The National Weather Service has issued yet another heat advisory for much of Southern California, less than a week after other high-temperature warnings were lifted.

This week’s advisory will be in place from 10 a.m. Wednesday through Monday. Forecasters expect temperatures to climb steadily over the course of Wednesday and Thursday.

The San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and other inland areas in L.A., as well as Riverside and San Bernardino counties, will likely see highs ranging from the mid-90s to about 105 degrees. Areas closer to the coast, including downtown Los Angeles and much of Orange County, will hit the 90s. Beaches will hover mostly in the upper 70s.

Humidity will also add to the discomfort. Even though it’s decreasing slightly, it makes cooling down harder, especially at night.

People who work outdoors or do not have air conditioning are especially at risk from the heat and humidity, along with people over 65, young children and other sensitive populations.

Fire risk

Forecasters are warning that conditions are ripe for fires, driven by a combination of wind and dry vegetation.

Southern California hasn’t seen much rain recently, despite the humidity, leaving plants with little moisture and turning them into the perfect fuel.

“Even though the air feels kind of moist, we're in the time of season where it doesn't matter. The fuels are dry and they're ready to go,” said NWS meteorologist Ryan Kittell.

Kittel said people should take extra care with anything that could create a spark, and residents in fire-prone areas should remain aware of their surroundings in case a fire starts.

The fire risk is likely to be concentrated in a few specific areas that will experience higher winds than others, including parts of the 5 Freeway corridor in northern L.A. County, especially around the Grapevine, and in southern Santa Barbara County.

For most of the region, though, winds should stay fairly mild.

Dangerous beach conditions

Southern Californians also have to contend with some ocean-specific risks this week.

Forecasters expect dangerously large waves and strong rip currents to hit the coastline at a time when the heat may drive more people to the beach. The conditions are expected to persist through the weekend.

If you decide to head to the beach, it’s a good idea to ask a lifeguard for advice on the conditions before entering the water. It’s also recommended to swim only near occupied lifeguard stands, stay off of rock jetties and avoid turning your back to the waves.

South-facing stretches of coastline will bear the brunt of the swell, which is being driven by two tropical storms churning hundreds of miles away in the Pacific Ocean.

“Those two systems generated the winds and the waves locally that are pushing towards us, and so that's creating elevated surf and some stronger currents than normal,” Kittel said.

The swell is not expected to cause significant coastal flooding as high tides remain relatively low.