Apparently during my last trip to the Orlando area, my diet reflected interesting choices. As I worked through my trip chronologically leading to eating every Universal Orlando Mardi Gras food item, I discovered patterns of food choices. I ate cookies, doughnuts, table service pretzels, and pizza. If you have talked with me or read a significant amount of my articles, you know I discourage people from buying theme park pizza. This rule applies to Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, and even SeaWorld Orlando. Yes, there are a few exceptions. However, I do not want to spend a fortune for decent pizza (looking at you Via Napoli!).
Red Oven Pizza Bakery provides an alternative to this dilemma. For about $15, you can buy a reasonable quality pizza with shared potential. Recently, I selected not to share a Margherita pizza from Red Oven. Yes, I ate the whole thing.
If you are unfamiliar with Red Oven Pizza Bakery, it resides in the heart of Universal Orlando CityWalk. As you enter from the moving walkways, the Red Oven will be on your left before you decide which park to enter. Red Oven shares some characteristics with Blaze Pizza over at Disney Springs.
Red Oven offers Neapolitan style pizza. The pizza features crispy crusts with a firm style dough. These often-asymmetrical pizzas provide guests with quality pizza in a non-traditional format.
I ordered a Margherita pizza. This vegetarian pizza came with fresh buffalo mozzarella, basil, San Marzano tomatoes, and organic extra virgin olive oil. The pizza costs $14.
So how was this pizza? First, I ate the whole thing. Bear in mind, this pizza was consumed less than 18 hours after the one I ate from the Urban Pantry.
The Neapolitan style flavors worked as light but flavorful. Though my pizza looked a bit off center, the crust tasted solid. I would have preferred a bit more distinctiveness in terms of individual flavors though. The cheese starred in this pairing with the crust. The tomatoes worked okay but expected more from that flavor. The pizzas are baked very well added to the overall experience.
Consider, a person with normal dining habits could share a pizza here, the $14 price point shines as a good value. If sharing, you could get a salad also to share to enhance your dining experience. Universal Orlando offers some high-quality pizza outside the theme parks at their resort hotels, Vivo, and this place.
Skip the in-park below average overpriced pizza. Take a step outside the parks to CityWalk for Red Oven.
As always, eat like you mean it!
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