{"id":223601,"date":"2026-03-17T11:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T11:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/223601\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T11:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T11:20:07","slug":"flour-water-pizza-shop-adds-to-oaklands-booming-pizza-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/223601\/","title":{"rendered":"Flour + Water Pizza Shop adds to Oakland\u2019s booming pizza scene"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Francisco and Berkeley are the Bay Area\u2019s pizza<\/a> strongholds. But lately, Oakland has been catching up.<\/p>\n

Look no further than Flour + Water Pizza Shop, which debuted in Uptown Oakland early this year<\/a>. Cal-Italian titan Flour + Water Hospitality Group chose the Town for its first-ever expansion outside of San Francisco \u2014 solidifying Oakland\u2019s growing momentum as a pizza city. On a recent visit, I enjoyed the pizza shop more than I have in the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The pizza dough was dialed in, sporting the lightness and crispiness of a New York pizza combined with the chew and the fermented tang of Californian Neapolitan pizza. The dough is fermented for 96 hours, offsite, at Flour + Water\u2019s central pizza hub in North Beach<\/a>. The classic pepperoni pizza featured properly furled cups, spicy-sweet Lil Mama\u2019s peppers and an acidic tomato sauce. The evenly browned crust had slight dappling along the perimeter, a few char bubbles, and an airy, satisfying crunch. A few drops of Calabrian chile oil bring additional heat, though it\u2019s more floral than hot. You can stop by for a slice or make it a full dinner with bright, marinated Brussels sprouts; fantastic cheesesticks and a Lambrusco slushy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although Oakland is home to many of the Bay Area\u2019s best restaurants<\/a>, only in the last five years did the Town become such a pizza destination, with most shops offering region-specific pizza and a few forging their own identities. Not long ago, you had to leave Oakland to find a decent New York-style slice, but now it\u2019s available at multiple shops, including Mama\u2019s Boy<\/a> and Pizza Ponte<\/a>, the latter the crunchier of the two. You can find worthwhile pan pies at Hesher\u2019s Pizza, Cellarmaker House of Pizza and Square Pie Guys. June\u2019s Pizza<\/a>, known for its wood-fired sourdough pies embellished with heaps of shaved cheese<\/a>, has ascended into one of the pizza greats, both for its consistency and exceptional bread-baking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most of the newer Oakland shops, except June\u2019s, are geared towards takeout. (This is especially true of Flour + Water Pizza Shop, which aims to get the bulk of its business from carry-out and delivery orders.) But June\u2019s, which has landed on multiple national best-of lists<\/a>, treats pizza as the main event, with a 14-person staff executing a hyperfocused menu of only two pies each night.<\/p>\n

Like the city itself, Oakland pizza is ever-changing, offering a wide spectrum of styles, and innovative, in the way that it makes influences from various pizza cultures its own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Francisco and Berkeley are the Bay Area\u2019s pizza strongholds. But lately, Oakland has been catching up. Look…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[332,413,143,145,144,412],"class_list":["post-223601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-east-bay","tag-food","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-restaurants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223601","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=223601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}