{"id":199556,"date":"2026-03-01T18:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T18:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/199556\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T18:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T18:29:08","slug":"hi-hat-your-neighborhood-pizza-joint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/199556\/","title":{"rendered":"Hi Hat, your neighborhood pizza joint"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Hat opened in about mid-2025 in the space of former pizza parlor, Pi Bar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since I\u2019d never actually eaten inside Pi (having only been the recipient of slices brought to nearby dive bar, the Dovre, waaaaay back in the day), I can\u2019t say if the decor has changed much, but the pizza \u2014 mamma mia! \u2014 the pizza\u2019s pretty danged good.<\/p>\n

Hi Hat employs a magical being that our server called \u201cthe Wizard;\u201d its very own pizzaiolo, throwing pizzas by hand, as in ye olden days, spinning the pliant dough far into the air.\u00a0Dinner and a show!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We started out with the arugula salad: Shaved fennel, roasted delicata squash, pomegranate arils, and za\u2019atar chickpeas in a ras al hanout vinaigrette.<\/p>\n

\"AHi Hat arugula salad. Photo by Maria C. Ascarrunz.<\/p>\n

With all of those ingredients, this should have been a salad full of flavor, no?\u00a0Unfortunately, we found it inexplicably bland, to the point that we even asked for additional dressing, And still, even after adding salt, the flavors just didn\u2019t come through.<\/p>\n

Next, we shared the cauliflower fritters.<\/p>\n

\"ThreeHi Hat cauliflower fritters. Photo by Maria C. Ascarrunz.<\/p>\n

Served with a sweet peanut sauce, I enjoyed this very crispy treat, although the sauce skewed more honey-mustard than peanut. Perhaps this would have been better with a blue cheese sauce, or something else a little on the savory side.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for le pizze, we shared the spicy vodka and stracciatella:<\/p>\n

\"LargeHi Hat vodka and stracciatella pizza. Photo by Maria C. Ascarrunz.<\/p>\n

Spicy vodka sauce, garlic confit, basil,\u00a0chili flakes, mozzarella, Parmigiano, and the lovely stracciatella.\u00a0Wonderful, full of flavors that played together nicely, on a crispy, thin crust.\u00a0 The ultra-creamy stracciatella really makes this special.\u00a0Definitely merits a do-again.<\/p>\n

We also split the mushroom pie: <\/p>\n

\"LargeHi Hat mushroom pizza. Photo by Maria C. Ascarrunz.<\/p>\n

Again with garlic confit, porcini cream, mushrooms aplenty, mozzarella and Parm, lemon ricotta, oregano and parsley. There was no skimping on rich, cheesy goodness on this one, and the lemon notes made this pie sing.\u00a0 And we had leftovers to take home.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot more on offer at Hi Hat and, despite the glitches with our starters, I\u2019m looking forward to trying the French onion dip with house-made chips, the classic eggplant Parm sandwich, and their banana pudding. <\/p>\n

Both of our pies were vegetarian, so next time I\u2019d try the pepperoni, although the Jersey Pie is very enticing. Hi Hat also serves burgers and Buffalo wings. They\u2019ve got beer on tap and a very decent wine list, as well as various ciders and seltzers, and non-alcoholic cocktails, too. Besides full pies, they offer $3 slices after 9 p.m. every day, plus delivery.<\/p>\n

A solid neighborhood joint that won\u2019t throw you off budget, with warm and friendly service, and a fun music playlist (though I hear they\u2019ve had a DJ at times, too.)\u00a0 Good pizza, good beer \u2014 what more can you ask for?<\/p>\n

Hi Hat<\/a>
1432 Valencia St.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hi Hat opened in about mid-2025 in the space of former pizza parlor, Pi Bar.\u00a0 Since I\u2019d never…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[413,579,412,24928,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-199556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-food","9":"tag-restaurant-reviews","10":"tag-restaurants","11":"tag-reviews","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","14":"tag-san-francisco-news","15":"tag-sf","16":"tag-sf-headlines","17":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}