F***, Chuck, Marry: Volume Seven

By now you know the oath: if a restaurant makes it into this series, I love it, even the ones I chuck, maybe especially those. This isn’t about cancellation; it’s about confession. A Yelp review will tell you if the crust was too charred. I’m here to tell you if it broke my heart, ruined my week, or made me believe in love again.

That’s the whole point of this deranged little exercise: dining in LA is never just dining. It’s intimacy, projection, ego, regret, delight. It’s therapy in red sauce, a revelation in garlic, occasionally being humbled by a server with better tattoos than you.

So, in the spirit of flings, breakups, and lifelong commitments, here’s Volume Seven.

F***: Apollonia’s Pizzeria

Apollonia’s is, hands down, the best pizza in my neighborhood. That’s not an opinion; that’s a fact I’ve tested with my own body. But here’s the problem: the very thing that makes it great is also what makes it dangerous. One slice is already indecent; two feels like sinning against your own future. I stand in line, sweating over whether to get the triangle or the square, as if one choice will unlock a healthier, more balanced life. And every time, I end up with both, equally decadent, equally destructive, equally certain to leave me half in love and half in ruin.

That’s fuck energy. Not because it isn’t brilliant — it is — but because brilliance doesn’t always mean longevity. This is the pizza equivalent of the person who ruins you in a bathroom stall and still texts “miss u” three days later. You don’t settle down with it; you surrender to it, fully aware you’ll regret it the moment the grease hits your bloodstream.

And then Dave Portnoy showed up, took a bite, and changed the whole narrative. What was once cinematic brilliance became fandom fodder, like The Dark Knight, forever tied to the guys who quote Joker monologues in group chats. The film didn’t change. The pizza didn’t change. But the undertone shifted. Suddenly your secret obsession was being shared, memed, and claimed by a subculture you never signed up for.

And here’s the part I can’t ignore: I’m no better for letting that bother me. The square is perfect, the triangle still ruins me, and yet I flinch at the association. That’s on me. The insecurity, the need to keep my obsessions unsullied by other people’s taste, that’s my baggage. We can’t really be surprised: I made it my whole personality in college that I got through four years without ever sleeping in a frat house. This is just the pizza version of that same smug streak.

Which is exactly why Apollonia’s can never be a Marry. It has the script, the dialogue, the perfect direction, but the context is corrupted, and I’m too weak to rise above it. I can’t meet it at the altar without hearing the echo of someone else’s discourse.

So Apollonia’s, you’re a F***. A heavy, reckless, can’t-stop-touching-each-other kind of fling. You’ll always ruin me in the best way. But in the morning, I can’t build a life around you, not when I’m still wiping the grease off my fingers and blaming myself for caring who else is at the table.

Chuck: Chill Since 93

If Apollonia’s is the fling that wrecks me, Chill Since 93 is the cafeteria crush I never should’ve entertained in the first place.

Chill Since 93 is, technically, Brandy Melville’s pizza place. Which already feels like a dare. Pizza, by nature, is abundance, New York folds, Sicilian squares, Neapolitan char. It thrives on diversity, interpretation, the sheer chaos of choice. Brandy Melville, on the other hand, built an empire on one size fits all. And you can taste that philosophy baked into the crust.

Eating here feels like standing in a cafeteria line where the rules are non-negotiable: one slice, one option, take it or leave it. No one asks what you actually want; the decision has already been made. And while the food itself is good, of course it is, or it wouldn’t be on this list, there’s something about the setup that makes me bristle. I don’t want to be halfway through a pie and suddenly confronted with my childhood insecurities about fitting in. I came here for pizza, not groupthink.

That’s why Chill Since 93 lands in Chuck for me. Not because it isn’t delicious, it is, but because pizza, at its best, feels democratic, expansive, a pillar of abundance. Chill Since 93 lifts straight from the cafeteria rulebook, and that just doesn’t square with what I want from a love affair with a slice.

So yes, I’m letting this one go. With respect. With gratitude. With the understanding that someone’s Brandy Melville pizza experience is another person’s middle-school gym class dodgeball humiliation (I’m 30 years old, and apparently still not over it). It’s a hard, inevitable kind of lesson, the kind that builds character and self-awareness, the kind that eventually gives you the confidence to leave a place like this in the past.

Marry: Pizzeria Sei

And then there’s Sei, proof that sometimes marriage is found not in spectacle, but in salt.

The older I get, the more I realize the difference between a F*** and a Marry might just come down to a perfectly salted crust. When I was younger, I thought marriage meant fireworks, spectacle, being swept off my feet. But at some point, you start to understand: sometimes forever is built on something as quiet and profound as balance.

On paper, Sei shouldn’t feel this special. The lighting is bad, the seating is limited, the room is stripped of anything you’d Instagram. But then the pizza arrives, and it’s like the whole place exhales. You take a bite and realize you don’t need the performance, because the pizza is doing all the talking.

What sets Sei apart is how it embraces difference without turning it into gimmick. There’s a pizza omakase here, pulling global inspiration into something that still feels rooted, still feels right. It’s different, but it’s a different that works. No flash, no false notes, just quiet confidence in its own voice.

And that’s marriage. You see them, you really see them, without the filters or the smoke machines. And they give you a reason to keep going back.

As a chef, I can tell you: this is what staying power looks like. The crust salted exactly right, the balance that makes you want to build a life around it. Not the loudest room, not the sexiest lighting, just the best bite of your life, waiting for you again and again. Reader, I marry them. And for once, I’m not looking over my shoulder, except maybe to make sure no one eats the last slice before me.

So there you have it:

Apollonia’s, the fling I’ll never quit but can’t quite marry; Chill Since 93, the cafeteria crush that taught me an uncomfortable truth about my own insecurities; and Pizzeria Sei, the quiet, confident partner I’d happily build my life around.

If nothing else, this round proves the “F***, Chuck, Marry” framework is less about judgment and more about self-discovery. Sometimes you crave chaos, sometimes you reject conformity, and sometimes you find the kind of steady brilliance that makes you raise your own standards.

Because food, like love, isn’t just about taste. It’s about what it reveals, who we are when we surrender, who we are when we walk away, and who we become when we finally decide to stay.

Until next time: kiss your flings, learn from your cafeteria crushes, and marry the pizza that salts its crust just right.