The Besta-Wan Pizza House in Cardiff, CA (North San Diego)
at a glance
Besta-Wan Pizza House, 148 Aberdeen Drive, Cardiff, CA | 760-753-6707
Funky, beachy pizza joint just a few blocks from the ocean. Expect a local vibe and a laid back surf scene.
TRIVIA: What’s that name mean? Imagine The Godfather asking you to bring him a pizza and you ask “which one?” and he says, and you need to say this in your best Godfather accent, “the besta one”. At least that’s my theory and it could be wrong but how could it be?
I moved to North County 25 years ago and while people like to say that it’s not the same as it used to be it’s frankly not that much different. Oh sure, there are fewer greenhouses and plenty more tract houses, and yeah, traffic is bad but the ocean still looks the same to me and that salty air and June Gloom hasn’t changed so this is where I’ll always call home.
But a few months ago something did change, something that was catastrophic if you read Nextdoor. Besta-Wan Pizza House, our local pizza joint known for the Kraut-za pizza, had changed owners… and the menu.
The Original Besta-Wan menu from 1965.
What’s a Kraut-za pizza? The Kraut-za is what they were famous for, a pizza with a thin layer of sauerkraut that was covered with spicy sausage and tons of gooey mozzarella cheese and topped with pepperoni. Stop making that face - you like a sausage and pepperoni pizza, right? The sauerkraut just addss a nice tang in an undercurrent sort of way. If you watch Food TV they call this "layers of flavor”. It was one of those things that made people go “uggh” until they took their first reluctant bite and then, yeah, they were convinced that every pizza joint should make this pizza. Except no one else did and that’s what kept so many of us locals coming back again and again. It was our special pizza that only locals knew about.
And then it was gone. Or was it?
Not a Kraut-za, but basically a Kraut-za
So yes, Kraut-za is no longer on the menu but Megan (everyone’s favorite waitress there) showed me a hack for how you can still get what is basically a Kraut-za - you simply order a cheese pizza and add sauerkraut, spicy sausage and pepperoni to it and there you have it, a Kraut-za pizza.
But was it as good as the real thing?
Here are a couple of photos of the Kraut-za Pizza take over the years:
2016
The Original Kraut-za from a photo I took in 2016
2018
Half Kraut-Za and half veggie (I know, this combination cancels each other out, right?) - this was a good one!
My Professional opinion of besta-wan’s quasi-Kraut-za pizza
The one thing about the old Besta-Wan is that it was never consistent. Sometimes the sausage was so spicy that I would break out in a sweat. Sometimes there wasn’t enough cheese. Sometimes the pizza crust was thick, sometimes thin, sometimes awesome, sometimes like dry cardboard. But when you got a good one, and that happened often, damn that pizza was hard to beat. Wait, you could not beat it is what I meant.
The new version of Kraut-za was very, very good. As good as the best one I’ve ever had there? No, but so close that everyone on Nextdoor needs to stop complaining and just go get this pizza and forget that things have changed because dammit that’s what happens sometimes and we need to embrace it when things are good and this pizza was damn good. I for one am glad that you can still get a Kraut-za and perhaps it’s even cooler that you need to be a local to know about it. And now you know too.
Dog friendly patio and this is my dog Birdy who is 6 months old and looks a bit worried that the pizza would not make the grade. She was very happy with some crust scraps.
Megan the waitress is so awesome and another big reason to go to Besta-Wan.
Pro Tip: People on Nextdoor have been complaining that the prices are higher than before and yeah, the medium pizza looked a lot like what I think we used to call the small but for a few bucks more you can get the large and it’s large all right - bring home the leftovers and just be happy about it.