Pizza Moda

Solid 5 stars! This place is too delicious and close by. Pizza is consistently wonderful so we do takeout all the time, pastas are great too. Really nice staff.

We had a fantastic time here! Delicious food, great service and lovely atmosphere.
Our large party (6 adults and 7 kids under 4) showed up on a Friday evening around 6 pm. We were greeted warmly and given a nice table. No one batted an eye at the hungry, crazy toddlers and the many adults in our party. They were very accommodating: quickly bringing high chairs, extra plates, plastic cups for the kids (thank you so much) !
The food came out fast and we found everything to be delicious. The $ 4– $ 5 kid menu items were perfect for the kiddos and they were all delicious. Overall a very positive experience. We will be back!

Had an order of the Smiling Cow ($ 22): tomato sauce, red onion, house-​made vegan sausage & vegan (cashew) mozzarella. Also had a large order of a large Golden Gate ($ 16): mozzarella fresca, tomato sauce, & basil. Food was delicious, staff was polite, and the ambiance was retro.

Food and portions were great! Came here on a livingsocial deal last year and the food was terrific. Highly recommend.

The owner is prejudice and very rude. We been here quite a few times, and he has never once greeted us. He literally picked my pizza up from my plate to break it in half (twice) to let me know their pizza crust is always made crunchy, biting into the pizza almost cracked my teeth. But the worst part of our experience, was, the owner picking in my plate. We simply let the owner know we were not pleased with how the pizza was prepared and he became so outraged.
And, Pizza Moda has a very bad stench as well, it’s not a clean establishment. We will never return. Thumbs down & zero stars.

We went here for the 2^nd time last night. We’d forgotten how pleasant an experience it is! Very tasty food, and a nice selection. The service was attentive, and let us relax and enjoy our evening. We will definitely be back!

Casual and laid back pizza and Italian restaurant. We ordered the sausage pizza which was very good and reasonably priced.
The server didn’t tell us this but on Wednesdays they have $ 15 bottles of wine and no corkage fee on Thursdays which are both awesome deals.
There aren’t a ton of dining options in this part of University Ave so it’s definitely a good option if you find yourself in the area. It was easy to get a table on a weeknight too.

I love the Mac n cheese here. This is one of the best places in the area for a quick (ish) dinner. It’s normally filled with local regulars and the staff are super friendly. They do a very good job of making sure everyone knows what is being served.
The alcohol list is a little shallow but what they do serve is very good. The wine list especially gets a gold star. If you’re like me and want an extensive beer selection they have enough to ride you over.

Really great food, ⁵⁄₅ stars for that. But like any restaurant it has a line and a wait time to get your food on the weekends l, but the reason I’m giving ⁴⁄₅ stars total is because they weren’t very quick or courteous when taking our orders or seating us. The food was worth the wait though.

The pizza taste wonderful!
Caesar salad is a very small portion, dessert ruined my experience dinning here, don’t order dessert!
Interior design is lovely, from seating area to bathroom, very cozy and warm. Parking is easy. Service is not too bad, our waiter is friendly but busy, taking quite a while to get our dessert and check. Owner, Hun, don’t know how to put this, but he acted weird, you can kind of tell he has his favorite guests and some guests he doesn’t really care~

From the outside, Pizza Moda looks like your stereotypical family pizza joint. And while I would still describe it as a family friendly place; the quality of the food (and uniqueness) make it much more exciting.
My friend and I had a garlic bread appetizer and shared the bacon and potato pizza! It was pretty amazing. The white cream sauce, with the thinly cut potatoes and bacon made this into a scalloped potato pizza!
Lots of tables around us were enjoying the pasta dishes on the menu, and they also looked pretty tasty.

I order take out from there today and it was gross. I probably would have done better eating a hot & ready $ 5 pizza. The sauce is pretty bad.
Also the lady that gave me my food wasn’t the nicest. She asked me if I wanted cheese & peppers then turned around and told me that they were out of cheese. Than I asked if they had shakers on the table that I could just use. She told me she could probably put some in a container for me & then brings me some.
The reason this was a problem is because she should have just put some in the container when she notices the didn’t have the packets instead of telling me she was out. She gave me the vibe that she just didn’t feel like putting the cheese in the container. Then when I asked for a second container she huffed and puffed. I also asked if they had ranch and she just said «No» and walked away.
Another nice lady there helped me by grabbing plastic utensils for me.
Bad Pizza + sub-​par service+no ranch = 1 star

I didn’t realize I haven’t written a review about this place yet! I’ve been here a couple times and have to say that I’ve always had good experiences here. Pizzas are pretty good and have a variety of interesting toppings that I’d love to go back and try…
Service is pretty spot on as well, they pay attention and make sure to check in with you to make sure you’ve got everything you need! The place can get pretty busy/​crowded, especially over the weekends. Love the casualish atmosphere too.

Pizza Moda has really good food and even better happy hour specials. During happy hour (Wed. and Thu. from 8:30 to close), all glasses of wine are just $ 5 each and their pizzas are $ 10 each. That’s an amazing deal!
I was dining with three of my friends and we shared these dishes:
Garlic Bread — The bread was tasty. However, given that they bring out bread for the table, it’s probably better to order a different appetizer.
Baked Mac and Cheese — This was my favorite dish of the evening. The combination of cheddar, gorgonzola, and fontina cheeses is simply sublime. I would rather have this mac and cheese dish than any of the dishes at Homeroom.
The Pizzas — We ordered one pepperoni and one chicken and garlic cream pizza. All of the ingredients on the pizzas were fresh and flavorful. The crust was thin, crispy, and cooked perfectly. While I enjoyed both of the pizzas, I think I’ll probably choose a more adventurous one next time.
The service was really great too. We had a Unilocal deal that we were thinking about using, but our server helped us realized that the happy hour prices were a better savings, so we were able to take advantage of happy hour prices and save the deal for another time.
Overall, I really enjoyed happy hour at Pizza Moda, and I hope to return soon.

Came here with a large group on a Wednesday for dinner. It wasn’t too packed, but they were still busy. The service was really good for it being busy and it looked like there were only 3 people working the front of the house for a medium sized space. We ordered mushroom pizza, pepperoni pizza, goat cheese ravioli, mac n cheese pasta, fried calamari.
The pizzas are thin and good. The pepperoni pizza was extremely oily, but that’s what happens, right?
I did not like the goat cheese ravioli mainly because I don’t like goat cheese. It’s that distinct goat-​y flavor that I don’t like. However, the sauce that came with the ravioli was soooo good! There were about 4 large pieces of ravioli in a shallow bowl of sauce. They gave us a basket of bread and soaking that bread in the sauce was so good.
Something that bothered the group was the calamari fries were not just calamari. It was mixed with onion rings and lemon slices. It was weird that the lemon slices were also fried. Everyone was expecting just calamari, but then to bite into something that ended up being an onion or lemon slice was a bit off. Half of us liked the mix, the other half thought it was weird.
Overall, I’d like to come back to try their other menu items. Pizza wasn’t spectacular, but it was good enough.

A little pricey, but overall very delicious!
Appetizer —
Pan-​roasted brussel sprouts: The dijon-​caper vinaigrette they cooked the sprouts in were perfect complement to the natural flavor of the vegetable. Perfectly cooked and flavorful when popped inside your mouth. I thought the dish would have been bigger given the price, but it was a pretty tiny portion, and we were trying to share it amongst 6 people. Every person only got about 4 halves of a sprout.
Pasta —
Chicken and Mushroom Diavalo: yum yum! I loved the sauce that came with this dish, it actually had more flavor than one of the pizzas we got. When we got to the crust for the pizza, we dipped it in this sauce.
Pizza —
Potato and Bacon: One of my favorite pizzas now! I am not a fan of red sauce, and this pizza was perfect with lots of bacon flavor. In addition, the potatoes complemented this pizza well, giving it an overall balanced palate.
Monterey Squid: Kind of flavorless and skimped out on the squid. Squid normally wouldn’t give things flavor, so they really needed to add a bit more seasoning to it. I understand why they didn’t overwhelm it with other flavors because they are trying to maintain the minimal flavor of the squid, but the cream sauce of the pizza hindered it anyway.
The service we had was not amazing at all. The waiters/​waitresses kept forgetting to come back and check on us or got our table mixed up with another. When we requested to get another set of utensils and napkins, it took them a really long time and we had to ask them twice just for them to get it done.
At the end, the 6 of us were satiated but not overly full. Perfect portion without overeating.

Had some of my favorite date nights here with the bf. It’s a casual but delicious restaurant, and a night here can be paired with something simple like a long walk on a nice day all the way to this restaurant (not really easily accessible if you live on campus) or dessert after (nations pie anybody?).
I’ve been here on Wednesday when the wine is ½ off (although I believe they have happy hour on week nights late at night, which is awesome if you dine late!) and on a Friday, when it was more bustling. Both times, our service was great and the food even better.
Their pizza is simple but great in terms of quality (not too cheesy and enough sauce, unlike most pizzas) and quantity (HUGE pizza). We’ve also tried their butternut squash ravioli (heavy but great) and their brussel sprouts (they come with a dijon dressing, great pairing). Everything I’ve tried, I’ve been satisfied with and I can’t wait to return to relive the happy times we’ve had here :)

Great pizza. Unfortunately, seeing the owner yell at his kitchen staff and throw a fit in the kitchen has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. No pun intended.
I know that should affect my feelings, or my review for that matter. However, if you’re going to yell at your staff, don’t do it when there’s a large window from the kitchen that opens into the dining room.

The caprese wasn’t bad but I’ve definitely had better; I’m so used to having it with burrata that the classic mozzarella simply doesn’t do. But that’s my problem, and is not the reason for my apparent gripe. The tomato was what let the dish down. I would expect a sweet flavourful heirloom tomato paired with the cheese and basil, but what I had tasted like the garden-​variety «conventionally grown steak tomato» (whose only purpose seemed to be to serve as a hamburger garnish). The cucumber slices in it was something different that kinda worked, alas, hampered by the paucity of extra virgin olive oil that I had to try and dab the salad into, from whatever little was drizzled on.
Their pasta is house made and the pappardelle I had was cooked just right. The chicken version of the spicy italian sausage worked just right for me, down to the fennel seeds. The tomato sauce was sharp and had a nice acidity that the kale did a great job of cutting through. I loved how the hint of bitterness of the kale complemented the sauce greatly.
The pizza is a New York style, with a thin-​but-​not-​too-​thin crust, a little puffy around the edges, slightly crunchy but soft inside, and approaching that of a Neopolitan but not quite there. I had the tomato and mushroom with truffle oil, and an additional topping of Italian sausage. The tomato sauce was good, but the truffle oil raised it to a whole new level. I think the heavenly aromatic of truffle oil just served to blanket and overcome any apparent weakness the rest of the pizza may have had.
it was a decent amount of food for a tad less than fifty bucks (incl taxes, before tips) and I ended up taking more than half of it home. The pasta tasted good even after microwaving it, and the pizza was still pretty good cold.
Would I cross a tunnel or a bridge to eat there? No.
Would I eat there if I happen to be in the neighbourhood? Yes.

Ever since my babygirl scored a much deserved ROTD for Pizza Moda, I have been hesitant to write a review of my own. I knew whatever I have to say will just be more of the same from what she said, as we order the same thing every time. Well, after yet another successful visit for a budget friendly date night courtesy of Travelzoo, I figured why not help spread the word, this place is good!
I had always known of this location as the now defunct Fellini’s. A Vegan/​Veg Italian restaurant. In fact it may have been one of my first ever Unilocal reviews. While Pizza Moda didn’t carry on the tradition of its predecessor, there are several Vegan choices on the menu. In fact, we pretty much order them all every time we come here. Smiling Cow Vegan Pizza, the Vegan Mac ‘n Cheese, & Vegan Caeser Salad.
Service kinda sucks. It’s not terrible but it’s nothing special. The best you’ll receive is mediocrity. No wonder this place is usually half empty when we come here despite its prime location on University, near Republic of V grocery store. Oh well, at least they give you a free bowl of olives before the meal, and they have several local brews on tap for a fair price.
The Vegan Caeser Salad is surprisingly the only thing from here I really crave. It seems so simple. Romaine lettuce, a tangy dressing, with a few homemade croutons. Yet there’s something about it that is irresistibly tasty. I’m gonna pin it on those spectacular croutons.
The Vegan Mac ‘n Cheese is another fantastic dish. Maybe the best in Berkeley? It’s creamy, it has a good amount of bread crumb topping, it’s delicious. The only issue it’s it’s consistency from the kitchen. We’ve been here on 4 occasions and every single time, it tastes differently. Often salt and pepper are needed to be added at the table, yet not always. Kinda odd…
They may only offer one Vegan pizza but it’s a goodie. The Smiling Cow brings smiles to more than just cows. It’s topped with the right amount of Daiya, Vegan Sausage, and some veggies. The crust while thin-​ish, only seems to get better with every visit. In fact it’s a pretty darn good pizza when cooked properly.
I’ll keep coming here as long as they keep offering deals. Speaking of, they just so happen to have a Unilocal deal of $ 15 for $ 30 going on right now. *hint, hint*
To see my sweetie’s ROTD in all it’s glory, read on: