REVIEW: The Best Pizza in Portland

By Theo Butler ‘25

Top left image of Hapa Pizza pizza. Bottom left image of Ken’s Artisan Pizza pizza. Far right image of Lovely’s Fifty Fifty pizza. Collage assembled by Theo Butler ‘25. 

Portland is known for many things, but one of these that may be unexpected is the pizza. With so many great restaurants, it’s hard to choose where to get pizza from in Portland. When trying to decide where I would eat, I narrowed it down to three restaurants. 

Ken’s Artisan Pizza was named the second-best pizza restaurant in the world in this article by Big 7 Travel, so it had to make the list. Another restaurant that has seen critical success is Lovely’s Fifty Fifty, with owner Sarah Minnick being nominated for two James Beard awards, and Lovely’s Fifty Fifty appearing on the Netflix show Chef’s Table, due to their creative topping choice. The final pizza place is Hapa Pizza, as it made the New York Times’ list of the 22 best pizza restaurants in the U.S. 

After determining which restaurants I would be trying, I needed the criteria for grading them. To make it fair to each restaurant, I would try the same thing at each one. The only choice that seemed right to me was the margherita, as it is the original pizza. 

The categories I selected are size, cheese-to-sauce-to-dough ratio (CSDR), extra ingredients, and, of course, taste. While most of these make sense, my second category may need some explaining. I believe that having the proper amount of each of the three basic ingredients is integral to a good pizza, and too much or too little of any one can ruin it.

Finally, I needed a scale. I am going with a ten-point scale for the overall pizza, with specific notes on each category. 

Hapa Pizza: 9.1

For $15, Hapa Pizza was the least expensive of the three I tried. It was also the only one on the west side of town, being in Beaverton. 

Size:

Of the three pizzas I ate for this review, Hapa Pizza’s was the smallest. It was also sliced rather unevenly, with one half of my pizza having much larger slices than the other. 

CSDR:

Hapa Pizza’s margherita nailed the sauce-to-dough ratio, with enough sauce that there was a noticeable layer on top of the pizza, without being so much that it caused each slice to flop, maintaining the structural integrity of the pizza. 

What was lacking was the cheese. There just wasn’t quite enough for me. Each slice had one or two pieces of cheese, so most of the slices wouldn’t have enough. 

Extra Ingredients:

Hapa Pizza’s margherita had onions added to it before it was cooked, and onions aren’t a traditional margherita ingredient. The onions added to the overall pizza, but there weren’t so many that it changed its identity away from a margherita. Overall, they were a solid addition. 

Taste:

Hapa Pizza’s margherita tasted like what you would expect a well-made margherita to taste like, albeit occasionally having too much crust for the amount of toppings. The dough was a nice sourdough, as to be expected from a quality pizza restaurant. 

Lovely’s Fifty Fifty: 9.3

While not named as a margherita on the menu, Lovely’s Fifty Fifty’s Fresh Mozzarella with Basil pizza comes in at $17 and serves the same role as a margherita on the menu. 

Size:

Lovely’s Fifty Fifty’s margherita was the perfect size for me to eat in one meal. Slightly larger than Hapa Pizza’s and with thicker dough than Ken’s, it was just the right size. 

CSDR:

Although I appreciated the size of this pizza, there was a little bit too much dough for the ingredients that were on top, and especially as I got towards the crust, it felt like there weren’t enough of the toppings. The ratio of cheese to sauce was perfect, there just wasn’t enough of either.  

Extra Ingredients:

Ironically, the only pizza here not officially named margherita is the only one without non-traditional ingredients. Lovely’s Fifty Fifty stuck with the classic tried and true margherita design. 

Taste:

Lovely’s Fifty Fifty has the classic margherita taste, with the only drawback being a heightened presence of sourdough taste due to the lessened amount of other ingredients. 

Ken’s Artisan Pizza: 9.8

Ken’s Artisan Pizza’s margherita was the most expensive one I tried, at $19. They are also open for a limited time each day, from 5 pm until they run out of dough (or a set time each day, whichever comes first). 

Size:

Ken’s Artisan Pizza was a little smaller than the others, but the restaurant also has a list of appetizers and bread that most people eat before they start their pizza. 

CSDR:

Ken’s Artisan Pizza nailed the amount of toppings that they put on their pizza. The cheese, sauce, basil, and olive oil are just heavy enough to cause a slight flop in the pizza without weighing each slice down enough to cause topping spillage. The crust also wasn’t so thick that it restricted the space for other ingredients.

Extra Ingredients:

The aforementioned Evoo olive oil was a welcome addition to the pizza, and it added a new layer of taste to the pizza in a way not seen in others. It improves the other aspects of pizza while still having its own taste. 

Taste:

Ken’s Artisan Pizza’s Margherita tasted great, as expected from a place ranked second in the world. My only gripe is the amount of pizza you get for the price. 

In conclusion, Ken’s Artisan Pizza once again proves why it is a staple of the Portland Pizza culture with a stellar pie. While Hapa Pizza and Lovely’s Fifty Fifty didn’t perform as strongly, it is important to note that the “classic pizza” isn’t what they are designed to make, but was the only pizza sold by all locations. 

Hapa Pizza’s fusions are delicious and original, and Lovely’s Fifty Fifty produces pizzas seen nowhere else in the world. Both of these places deserve to be on your radar, especially if you want to try something new.