Enjoy More Than Pizza at Pizza Lounge!

A look at the dessert selection offered at Pizza Lounge in Laguna Niguel tells you you’re in for a treat! Pizza Lounge offers the best artisan thin crust pizza in Orange County, but also many Italian specialties, weekly specials from the land and sea, and a rotating selection of 60 craft beers.

Pizza Lounge has two locations, one on Main Street in downtown Huntington Beach and one on Alicia Parkway in Laguna Niguel. Both are popular with local residents and tourists alike and online reviews attest to the friendly staff, delicious food, and worthy craft beer selection. The Laguna Niguel location has a larger bar and more diverse selection of handcrafted cocktails including the two I tried – the Grapefruit 3 Ways and Mandarin Maiden (below). Both were incredibly refreshing with bright citrus flavors from fresh juices, Aviation gin as the base for the Grapefruit 3 Ways and Hangar 1 vodka in the Mandarin Maiden, along with housemade syrups.

For someone like me who believes that pizza is a food group, I dine at the Pizza Lounge Huntington Beach location on a weekly basis. My fave is the Build Your Own with spinach, zucchini, bacon pieces and roma tomatoes or the Veggie Light & Healthy pizza (I can’t lie, occasionally I add their fabulous meatballs). With 23 signature pizzas to choose from and two sizes: 14″ and 18″, all reasonably priced from 13.95 to 22.95 – there’s certainly a pizza to fulfill your craving.

When the Pizza Lounge Laguna Niguel invited Shelby of OC Mom Dining and I to come in and try some of their other specialities, our husbands were glad to oblige and join us to ensure that a man’s opinion was represented.

Veggie Light & Healthy – splurge and add meatballs

Pepperoni & Italian sausage for meat lovers.

Chef Manny Lopez heads the kitchen at Laguna Niguel and plans the menu for both locations.  He does a fantastic job of keeping the loyal, local patrons happy by keeping their favorite Italian specialties on the menu while also featuring new dishes to keep things exciting. Among the weekly specials when we visited were Grilled Filet Mignon de Paris with Chef Manny’s special sauce, garlic mashed potatoes and Spring vegetables (28.95), Shrimp Scampi (16.95), and Cioppino with lobster, clams, mussels, and shrimp (22.95).

Cioppino

Shrimp Scampi

Grilled Filet Mignon de Paris

Beer calls for munchies and Pizza Lounge is certainly not lacking in this department. Before our entrees we tasted a few traditional favorites like their famous Hot Wings (9.95), Crispy Calamari (12.95), my favorite: the Ahi Tuna Tartare (12.95), and Baked Brie with Fig Flatbread (19.95) which is a meal in itself.

Last but not least, the desserts (opening photo) far surpass those you will find in any pizza parlor I’ve ever experienced. Bread Pudding, Vanilla Creme Brûlée, Chocolate Mousse are all made in-house, beautifully presented, and as scrumptious as what you would expect from a fine dining establishment.

If you have never dined at Pizza Lounge, I urge you to try it for an evening out with the family or date night. Chef Manny introduces weekly specials every Tuesday which can be viewed on the Pizza Lounge website. Both locations have Happy Hour daily from 3:00-6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. and wait, there’s more, Sunday Funday it’s Happy Hour all day and Wine Wednesday half off bottles of wine all day!