Delicious Pizza served in West Seattle

August 6th, 2007
By: Steve G

When it comes to pizza chains, usually Pizza Hut, Domino’s, or Round Table are the common places of choice. These places usually offer the generic types of pizzas, while adding gimmicky new items to keep customers within their fold. Sadly, this has started to become tiresome for some people. While Coffee.net was roaming in West Seattle, we tried a different local pizza chain, Luciano’s, that offers some great food in the form of pizzas and pastas that are of great quality.

Near the tail end of our photo run, Coffee.net headed down California Ave to find a place to eat. Italian food was on our minds and we were dressed somewhat crudely. We had about three options on what to check out. We spotted Luciano’s only a few blocks down from the Admiral Theater and decided to give it a go. As we entered Luciano’s there was only a small counter for seating, only accommodating about 4-5 people. Outside there were seats and tables available to eat outside on sunny days. Some scatterings of the latest issues of the Times and P.I. laid on the bar counter. The glass case by the register held about three types of pizzas that are made fresh every day and sold by the slice, but you can also order whole pizzas as well. As we perused the menu Luciano’s offered multiple types of pizzas, pastas, salads, and two of my personal favs: grinders and calzones.

Not one to shy away from trying a new calzone, especially since the demise of the Calzone King, Pete’s Pizza (“the king is dead, long live the king”), Coffee.net decided to give the Luciano’s Calzone a try as well as the artichoke chicken pizza. After about 15 minutes or so, both dishes came out and we were inundated by the amount of food laid before us. The medium size pizza was more than enough to fill up both reviewers. As we turned our eyes over to the calzone, it too in its own way was immense. The Artichoke pizza had a medium crust that was thick and soft and doughy in the middle. Very little oil or grease permeated from the any part of the pizza. The pizza was made with a creamy white sauce that was mildly sweet and tasted great. The mozzarella cheese was very gooey, as strings of cheese would stretch out in an random fashion resulting a fairly messy but enjoyable meal. The pieces of artichoke were a nice addition and both reviewers could not help but gorge themselves on the several slices. One of the reviewers ended up eating one slice too many and regretted the act of indulgence on his part.

As we turned on to the Calzone, the edges had an extremely thick crust while the crust around the middle of the calzone was pretty thin. The Luciano’s calzone was stuffed with chicken, various vegetables such as mushrooms and onions with a creamy white alfredo sauce. The ricotta cheese was rich and the mozzarella was thick. Some parts of the mozzarella seemed a little cold or undercooked, but was passable. Considering the relatively fast time to get our food, the reviewer took it with a grain of salt. Just a little more time in the oven would have made it perfect.

Luciano’s seemed pretty popular with locals as several people stopped by to pick up a slice to go or pulled up a seat on the bar counter.

While parking is scare as the only available spots are on the streets and your better off ordering to go, or having it deliver if you’re one of the lucky ones living in the West Seattle area. Nevertheless if your tired of the plain types of pizzas that those national chains serve, Luciano’s does not fail to deliver its great pizza and pasta. If we lived in the West Seattle area we are sure that we would be regulars.

If you like Luciano's Pizza, we suggest: