Ciao! Deli & Pizzeria

This place makes awesome pizza! I have only had delivery service. I can’t see myself ordering pizza from anywhere else but here. The meatballs are badass!
Only thing, they take vacations and close their store. I have called twice for a pizza when they were closed. Not enough of a reason to take stars away. Good food is worth waiting for.

This place sucks, the service is bad and the waiter is not friendly. The food is not good, the pizza tastes likes dominos!

Coming from New York City, this is the closest thing to actual pizza that I find appetizing, now that I’m away from my beloved haven of all things pizza.
I love how their pizza tastes more savory, and less sweet, and the smaller sized pepperoni slices are more flavorful. This is the place to go if you just want a good, straight forward, pizza with amazing flavor.
The delivery wait is long, about an hour. I won’t remove any stars for this, because it is worth the wait, and the owner sometimes delivers, himself. He’s always bantering and incredibly nice.

I’m a fan! Working in a corporate office, it’s hard sometimes to get out and get lunch– especially when our group is as big as it is and we need to be in and out in under an hour (preferably). Cue Ciao! We tried their delivery service out and were super impressed. They had a slight hiccup on the order but made good and took an item off the bill and redelivered the correct item. I love the online ordering feature, as it removes the human error potential of writing down the wrong thing, or something getting lost in translation. That and it leaves a hard copy record of your order. They always deliver in approximately an hour and allow my coworkers and I to have a delicious lunch without leaving the office.
The food really has a homecooked feel to it, as the owners are a husband and wife duo where the wife cooks and the husband delivers. It’s authentic east coast Italian that will be sure to leave you satisfied. Highly recommended!

GARLIC KNOTS WITH CHEESE and Ray’s (Owner) wife’s lasagna. OMG!!! I can’t find the words to describe their food. So delicious and the staff is extremely helpful and friendly.
I’ve only gotten take out, but would love to sit down and enjoy a meal there.

Best pizza in Orange County. No contest. And I am a pizza nut. Beyond the pizza, their pasta is fantastic and their cheesy garlic knots are amazing. Everyone I introduce Ciao to loves it immediately. Ciao has ruined me because I can’t eat pizza anywhere else. Eating a slice of roundtable or dominoes tastes like dog food to me now.

I don’t understand the great reviews. Came here once and it was just ok but I thought I’d give it another try… based on the reviews.
Just wanted some hold olé spaghetti and lasagna. Pretty simple right? You’d think? But there was hardly any sauce and what we got was just not good. No flavor at all. Very disappointing.

I keep coming back here and it just keeps getting better what can I say? I love the pizza, Love the garlic knots love the special desserts! If your lucky they will be serving the absolute best fresh cannoli. Seriously, it was the best I’ve ever had. I love the passion that goes into the food!

We were in town for my buddy’s MMA fight and thought we’d stay in and order pizza. It was delicious! They cook everything to order, so it’s fresh and authentic. This is not the place to go to if you’re after a quick, previously frozen meal, this is the real thing.
The owners are awesome, friendly, down to earth folks. I definitely recommend checking this place out.

Saturday night, friends over, had too much to drink, STARVING! Ordered the house pizza and a sausage and mushroom pizza. It was pretty good when it arrived but let me tell you, it was GREAT the next day heated up in the oven. Usually, pizza losses its freshness after its cooled down but the next day, it was amazing!

Such good food and nice people! We were having our joint board and area manager meeting today and they brought over a few trays of the tastiest food we’ve had this year. It’s all homemade and is as good as mom makes it and those garlic knots are better then mom makes it. Don’t tell my mom. I just told them how many people we needed to feed and they put together a very nice mix of vegetarian and meat dishes that made all of us happy. One thing extra special was when they called back last night saying they had inadvertently planned too much food and were revising the menu so we didn’t have too many leftovers.
Very nice. We had plenty of food but not too much.

We have missed Ciao so so much! This is our favorite Italian Resturant in all of So-​Cal! Not just that the food is delish… momamia!, but the friendly people make it very special.
Salute! We are having some of our favs, clams and linguini, pizza with meatball… yum!

Changed things up a bit on this trip to S Cal, stayed in Costa Mesa, rather than Newport Beach.
Ciao Deli was a short walk from my hotel, found myself craving Italian, so gave it a try. Orfered the baked ziti with sausage, and, you know what, tasted like home made, very nice. Small, but freindly place, Ray, the owner came around and chatted, nice guy, why don’t more more owners/​chefs do this?
I reallly enjoyed the food, loved the small simple atmosphere. I am looking forward to going back again to try the pizza next time.
BTW, the baked ziti was way to much for one meal, so left with enough for another meal!

I was hoping for a really good experience here, especially considering the reviews. My uncle from Vietnam was in town and loves pizza, so we wanted to show him what really good pizza would be like. I actually enjoy deep dish pizza, but I think my uncle would have thought it was too heavy, so my favorite go-​to spot was not an option. I’m not a big pizza person, so we decided to go here since it was close by. The parking here is awful since it’s in a little plaza with several other businesses, and it’s always packed in this plaza for some reason. so come early to scope out parking.
We ordered the family special, which seems to only be advertised on their website. It came with a 2-​topping E-​Large pizza, a salad, and 6 garlic cheesy knots (with cheese is a dollar more, I believe) for $ 24.99. I’d say a really good deal. The garlic knots came out and were pretty tasty, as good as they say. However, the pizza took over 45 minutes to get to our table. Now if this was a deep dish pizza, 45 minutes would make sense, but it was a pizza with normal crust. Why would it take 45 minutes? Turns out, it looked like they forgot our order or something. They did offer us dessert, but none of the options sounded appealing. It was mostly cheesecake stuff and a lemon tart. No one liked any. We got one anyway but didn’t even eat it all because… well, we didn’t like any of the options in the first place.
The service here was ok, but I don’t know if I would recommend this place to my friends. With so many options for pizza, I wish we had just gone to a BJ’s or just gotten the deep dish despite it being too heavy for my uncle. But at least now we know.

Pretty good pizza.
I ordered for takeout online.
12 piece buffalo wings ($ 10.95) — the wings were good. Slightly breaded, and probably baked– they weren’t too saucy and the skin wasn’t gross and slippery. These were great… although a bigger ranch would have been great appreciated.
I also ordered the House Combo ($ 20.95 for a large). The pizza was topped with pepperoni, sausage, bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, and olives. The pie was generously peppered with toppings. The marinara had a nice kick to it and the crust was a tad too toasty for my preference, but all in all, solid pizza.
Parking situation is a little hairy during dinner hours, but they try to their best to accommodate you if you’re picking up. Good value and taste for pizza outside of the usual chain establishments. Treat yo self and get a pizza here.

The pizza was good and although the cheesy garlic knots are tasty, they are VERY garlic-​y so beware! (Although too much garlic is never a bad thing in my book).
The owner, Ray, was super friendly and easygoing and so are his workers. I would dine here again.

Finally came here yesterday. I was excited but I was a tad disappointed afterwards.
Personally, I like some crunch in my crust. It had a bit but not enough. My friend and I decided on a pizza with sausage, meatballs, mushrooms, and dollops of ricotta. If you get 3 toppings, they are 50 cents each, but after that, they’re $ 1.50. Premium toppings such as ricotta/​pesto is $ 1.50.
It came out in a timely manner and a medium sized pizza was relatively large. The crust was a tad thicker than say Pizza Press, which probably resulted in there being 3 pieces leftover. Pizza itself wasn’t an explosion of flavors but I might be biased cause I’m comparing it to Pizza Press/Dean’s Pizza (which has thai curry pizza).
I actually ended up bringing sriracha from a Vietnamese place to spread over the creation. Don’t knock it til you try it, but it makes the pizza way better! :)
Service was fine.
Overall, this place is okay. It’s solid for the price. I’d stick with others but I wouldn’t say no if I’m in the area.

Cheesy garlic knots are on point! You get 6 small delicious hot rolls covered in cheesy goodness and fresh garlic everywhere. Don’t eat that on your first date. Haha. I added some red chili flakes for heat and devoured my half while eyeing my bf’s too. But luckily I had some control and waited for our pizza.
We ordered a medium meat lover’s pizza and it was plenty to share with left overs. The pizza was really good, not the best ever, but still good. There was plenty of toppings and I liked the thin dough and crust. I went wild and dipped my pizza in my side of ranch ($.50). Their pizzas didn’t have too much of the excess grease and oil like other places do so I didn’t feel too guilty.
Pizza prices are a teeny bit more expensive but their service and food was good so it was worth it.

3.75
I ordered a medium meat lover’s pizza to go with olives added, because it didn’t come with any, priced at around $ 17.50. The meat lover’s comes with pepperoni, italian sausage, meatball and bacon. The crust was a medium thickness and had a fairly good, fresh doughey taste. As you can see from my photo, they are fairly generous with their toppings. The italian sausage stood out and had a very good flavor. I really couldn’t taste any bacon on the pizza despite it being advertised to have some. The red sauce had a good tomato taste with the right amount of tang.
I would say that Ciao Deli makes one of the better pizzas that I have had in OC. It was good but it didn’t knock my socks off. I still have yet to be completely wow’d by any pizza in OC.

Ordered our food to go, had the fettuccine alfredo w/​spinach + mushrooms along with cheesy garlic knots.
Everything tasted great, it wasn’t greasy either. Portions are generous.
The woman answering the phone was professional.
Definitely coming back…