I’m crazy about the pizza served at Alon Shaya’s Domenica, the uber-popular Italian restaurant located inside the Roosevelt Hotel….so I’m beyond happy to have the new Pizza Domenica (4933 Magazine Street) now open just a short drive from my Uptown NOLA workplace.  All of Domenica’s greatest hits pizzas–including the calabrese, gorgonzola, enzo, and margarita–are on the menu, plus some new pies, pizzeria-style appetizers, salads, and a few upscale starters like the beautiful blueberry and snapper crudo pictured at left. (That’s a delicious white anchovy pizza lurking in the background.)

Pizza Domenica is open 11 am to 11 pm, seven days a week, so it’s almost always easy to find a seat (unlike its downtown sister).  Patrons order at the counter, and waiters bring out the food, resulting in briskly paced meals and a casual, relaxed vibe.  At present, there is no half-price pizza happy hour, but I expect we’ll see some sort of food-related happy-hour specials after the restaurant’s newness wears off.  Pizza Domenica happily does takeout (unlike some other Uptown pizza maestros), and online ordering is available.

My favorite menu item isn’t a carryover from downtown:  it’s a humble garlic knot.  Forget the typical chewy, sturdy garlic knots turned out by Brooklyn Pizza or Pizza Delicious:  Pizza Domenica’s knots are feathery light, almost tender with a distinctive blistered char.  Served with a generous side of garlic fonduta, these knots might rank as the best $6 menu item in town right now.

Side note:  maybe I like Pizza Domenica so much because the gray and white honed marble tables, Tolix Marais chairs, and natural wood could have been borrowed from my own kitchen…….ha.