Today I tried Ziggie’s Pizza (https://www.ziggiespizza.com/) for the first time. It is in the Ivanhoe Village district of Orlando, at 603 Virginia Avenue, not far from the Mills 50 neighborhood with some of our best restaurants in the city. Ziggie’s is named for its owner-operators, brothers Christian and Floyd Ziegler, who opened it in 2021. Their pizzeria shares space with a very hip bar, The Thirsty Topher, that specializes in really good beer and wine. You can hang out on either the bar side or the pizzeria side and bring your food and drinks back and forth.
I expected to have a hard time parking, as I do at most of the hyped, hipster establishments in Orlando, but it was very quiet on the Sunday afternoon I visited, with plenty of parking and no wait inside. I expect that would be very different most evenings, so plan accordingly.
The menu on the website doesn’t make this clear, but all the pizzas at Ziggie’s are 12″ personal size, and they are all wonderful thin crust style. You order at the front counter, and they have plenty of laminated menus to browse through. Pizzas with a variety of creative and high-quality toppings range from $10 to $16, and you have the option to build your own, starting at $10. There are also salads, if you don’t feel like a pizza, or if you want a salad with your pizza.
I can tell a lot about a restaurant by the kind of music they play, and these were the songs I heard while I waited for my order:
- Jurassic 5 – “What’s Golden”
- The Notorious B.I.G. – “Juicy”
- Mark Morrison – “Return of the Mack”
- A Tribe Called Quest – “Award Tour”
- Skee-Lo – “I Wish”
- Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five – “The Message”
All classics, all straight fire. Not booming loud, which is never necessary, just impeccable taste. (I might suffer from impostor syndrome and depression, but I know I have good taste, hence this blog!) At least someone at Ziggie’s is probably around my age, with impeccable taste too. It definitely made me realize I was choosing wisely.
They even decorate the walls with some sweet vinyl, including the aforementioned Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Madvillain, Czarface, and the legendary debut album of the Wu-Tang Clan:
NOTE: After publishing my review, Christian Ziegler himself sent me the link to the Ziggie’s Pizza Spotify playlist, which is nothing but bangers.
It didn’t take long for my pizza to be ready. Believe it or not, I don’t want my pizza to be loaded with toppings, especially when I’m first trying a new pizzeria. I’d rather let the crust, the sauce, and the cheese speak for themselves, so I can best assess the strengths of the pizza. As a result, I ordered The O.G. ($10), with red sauce, low-moisture mozzarella, buffalo mozzarella, AND aged pecorino romano cheeses. I loved that they garnished the pizza with fresh basil leaves. That’s a really nice touch, as it is one of my favorite pizza toppings in general, and one that never overwhelms the overall balance of the pie.
Stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, this was SUPOIB. A perfect pizza in every way. If you don’t like thin crust, you may be disinclined to agree, but I sure do. It wasn’t as crisp as a New York-style slice, but not as soft and floppy as a Neapolitan-style pizza. I’d describe it as a perfect middle ground between those two beloved pizza styles. As you can see, it was cut into six large slices rather than eight smaller ones (which I prefer, for no real reason), and I wolfed it down in no time flat. (It was my first meal of the day, you see, after spending hours cleaning the garage in the sweltering heat.)
Since I don’t drink, I didn’t bother exploring The Thirsty Topher in the adjoining space, but I hear it is an awesome place for beer lovers. Ziggie’s has a small refrigerator full of nice bottled sodas, but they are also kind enough to have a jug of chilled water available for free, so that’s all I had with my pizza at the time.
That said, The O.G. was so good that I had to bring some pizza home to share with my wife. As much as we are soulmates who are completely in sync throughout life, one thing we rarely agree on is pizza. She does like thin crust, though, so I figured she would appreciate Ziggie’s. I ordered two pies to go:
This is half of the Gabagool ($16), since I put two slices on a plate for her and devoured a third before remembering to photograph it. That’s a rookie mistake that I rarely make these days, but it was still warm by the time I got home, and I didn’t want to linger any longer. The Gabagool is topped with red sauce, a three-cheese blend, pepperoni, crumbled Italian sausage, smoked slab bacon (probably the highest quality bacon I’ve ever had on a pizza), and pickled red onions, which I requested on the side, because my wife hates onions as much as I love them.
It was awesome, and I was thrilled she agreed. She even suggested her parents would like this pizza, and they (in)famously don’t like trying any new things. I will have to introduce them to Ziggie’s and the Gabagool some time soon.
And this was the other pizza I brought home: the Killa Beez hot honey pizza ($16). I would have been tempted to try it for the Wu-Tang Clan reference alone, even if I didn’t love all the toppings on it: low-moisture mozzarella, pepperoni, prosciutto, crumbled goat cheese, fig jam, and house-made hot honey (which I requested mild for my wife, even though I’m among the some who like it hot).
We both like sweet and savory combos, and this was another hit. I would totally order this again, even though ultimately, the O.G. might have been my favorite of the three. In the future, I might just build my own pizza and get the smoked slab bacon, pickled red onions, and Calabrese peppers on it.
But I absolutely loved Ziggie’s Pizza, and the chill, laid-back vibe, and the sweet-ass hip hop they played, and I will definitely return. If you haven’t been there yet, I encourage you to go. That stretch of Virginia Drive between Mills and Orange Avenues has several hipstery bars and breweries on it, which many of my readers are probably already familiar with. Make sure you add Ziggie’s and The Thirsty Topher to your Sunday Funday drinking and dining agenda ASAP, and enjoy what might be the best thin crust pizza in Orlando.
The Saboscrivner 