Should you eat at The Wizard of Za? Na
BY LUKE ERIKSEN, ’22. GRAPHICS BY LUCY O’BRIEN, ’22.
The Wizard of Za is a reservation-only pizzeria on 4214 N High St.
With an incredibly unique business model and the rare Sicilian pizza, The Wizard of Za is very intriguing.
Sicilian pizza is known to be thick and square with a crunchy crust underneath. The popular Jet’s Pizza is also made in Sicilian style.
Orders are reservation-only due to high demand and the tedious process of making pizza from scratch.
According to The Wizard of Za website, “If there is any new availability, [new orders are] added to our calendar everyday around noon.”
I ordered two pizzas about two weeks in advance; I decided to go with a traditional cheese pizza and a pepperoni pizza. They offered some interesting additional options , but cheese and pepperoni are the only way to gauge quality pizza and compare it to others.
The pizzas were extremely pricey; the cheese pizza was $21.50 and the pepperoni pizza was $25. Considering that the pizzas cost nearly $50 and I had to wait days for this pizza, I anticipated top-notch pizza and an enormous portion size.
The Sicilian pizzas finally arrived on a Friday night. They were packaged in two white, rectangular boxes with a Wizard of Za logo on the top.
The pizza was not large in size, and although my appetite is definitely larger than the average person, I easily ate an entire pizza. Personally, I didn’t understand all of the hype towards Wizard of Za’s pizza. I was delighted with the lack of grease, as greasy pizza is often very heavy and not my favorite in particular. The crust gave a very light crunch. The pepperonis on the pizza gave a hint of spice, which worked well with the thick and cheesy blocks of pizza.
It’s mind-boggling to me that this pizza is in such high demand, as there is an abundance of Italian places that can cook up a pizza in a maximum of two or three hours. I will not make a reservation days in advance for an above-average, small pizza. However, the Sicilian style is a rarer kind of pizza which could play a factor in the high demand.
Overall the pizza was respectable but with its ridiculous price, long wait time and underwhelming size, I can’t say I’d order it again. If even one of these issues was fixed, it could greatly improve the experience, but until one of them does, Wizard of Za is not Lou approved.