Purgatory Pizza
Thursday, March 12, 2009 8:56
Purgatory Pizza is located in kind of a strange place. It’s on the outskirts of the main part of downtown LA, sitting at a mostly empty street by its lonesome self. If I hadn’t read about it beforehand (from Quarrygirl) I wouldn’t have known about it at all. The main reason we ate there was because we were in the area and it’s a pizza place that has vegan options.
The inside of the restaurant is nicely decorated with painted walls; my favorite section is pictured on the left. We got there on a weekday night around 8pm and the place was empty. I guess they don’t get a lot of foot traffic at that time. There was nothing in the display cases, and it looked like they were ready to close shop, so we were glad we weren’t any later.
The BF and I split a medium pizza which ended up being smaller than we thought. The pizza was topped with vegan cheese and I ordered sausage on my half.
The pizza as a whole was okay. It’s not the best vegan pizza I’ve had. That award goes to That’s Amore in Cerritos. The vegan cheese on Purgatory Pizza’s cheese had a gross hard texture that got even less appetizing as it cooled.
The crust on the pizza was thin — maybe a little too thin towards the middle, but the outside was decent. I’m not a professor of New York Pizza or anything, but I liked it. I also liked the tomato sauce, which had a little heat to it and wasn’t too tangy.
If you’re vegan, I’d suggest just ordering it sans cheese. If you’re not vegan, I’m sure the regular cheese will be fine. I thought the sausage that topped my half was good, but not spectacular. We might visit Purgatory again if we’re in the area, but it doesn’t seem like somewhere we’d go out of the way to eat at.
Purgatory Pizza
1326 East 1st Street
Los Angeles CA 90033
(323) 262-5310
Louise absolutely LOVES filthy, cheap places! (See more of her posts). You can also find more of Louise's writing at her own website NakedSushi.
MaxMillion says:
March 12th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
“I’m not a professor of New York Pizza or anything…” I love it!! People certainly can get really militant & regional about what constitutes a decent pizza!
Food GPS says:
March 12th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Vegan pizza with sausage? Good one. What exactly is “vegan cheese?” Also, nice pizza photo.
EL CHAVO! says:
March 12th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
I like the cheese pizza, it’s pretty good. But I have to respectfully disagree with your assessment that it’s “located in kind of a strange place.” It’s not “on the outskirts of the main part of downtown LA”, it’s in Boyle Heights, one of the neighborhoods on the Eastside, and home to many people. Why PP doesn’t mention where they are is a subject beyond this post, but just because people ignore us, it doesn’t mean we don’t exist. Saludos!
http://laeastside.com/2009/02/purgatory-pizza-in-boyle-heights/
Louise says:
March 12th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
@FoodGPS, I didn’t mean the whole pizza was vegan, but the half that didn’t have sausage was vegan. I think the vegan cheese they use is Teese Cheese, which is made from soy.
@El Chavo! Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend the people of the neighborhood. What I meant by strange was that there weren’t any other open restaurants or stores that looked opened on that block so it didn’t look like they’d get any foot traffic. But I guess they do some good delivery business.
Pepsi Monster says:
March 14th, 2009 at 12:47 am
Wow! Louise, you still think That’s Amore is a better vegan pizza? OK, I might have to hit Cerritos again to check that out.
I’m sort of glad DTLA has a vegan pizza place. I would have never suspected they would have that down there. It’s good to know!
Louise says:
March 14th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
@Pepsi Monster: I like the crust better at That’s Amore. I like a thin crust, but it was too thin at Purgatory. I also think the vegan cheese at That’s Amore is better because when it gets cold, it doesn’t have that weird plasticky texture. I had some re-heated leftover pizza from That’s Amore a few days ago and it sounds crazy, but the vegan cheese got even better!
Purgatory Pizza says:
March 15th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
@El Chavo! I never thought about it…wasn’t trying NOT to mention Boyle Heights, just thought to put a major landmark so people would have an idea where we are.
@Louise I respectfully disagree…NO ONE beats MY crust! ;) (it’s true though)