PIZZA PICKS

Spago and Angeli aren’t the only places you can find designer pizza. Here are a few recently reviewed restaurants that turn out some of this town’s tastiest pizzas. Baci (8265 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 651-4776). This bright and relaxing restaurant offers Pizza Baci with radicchio, tomatoes, anchovies, basil, cheese and garlic. The pizza dough is the fluffy, bready type, rolled so thin you may not recognize it as such unless you order one of Baci’s calzone (pizza with a top crust added on). Lunch and dinner daily. MasterCard, Visa and American Express. Full bar. Valet parking. Pizza: $7.95-$9.95.

Cafe Cafe, (10853 Lindbrook Drive, Westwood, (213) 824-2265). It’s an ‘80s sort of college-town pizza joint, with butcher paper on the tables and little cups of crayons for your doodling pleasure. The sausage pizzas are made with duck sausage. Pizzas, of which there are about 20, are thin-crusted with toppings typical of an up-to-the-trend Westside Italian restaurant. Lunch Mon.-Fri. and dinner daily. All major credit cards. Full bar. Valet parking. Pizza: $5.50-$8. Caioti (2100 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 650-2988). Ed La Dou, who was the first pizza chef at Spago, is in the kitchen. He is known as a pioneer in pizza topping experimentation: There’s roast garlic pizza with shallots and onion and smoked Gouda; smoked chicken pizza with roast peppers and goat cheese; barbecue chicken pizza. Customers are invited to design their own pizzas. (Another location is 8280 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (213) 656-2093.) Lunch Tue.-Sun., dinner daily. MasterCard and Visa. Valet parking weekends. Pizza: $7.50-$13.50.

Mum’s (144 Pine Ave., Long Beach, (213) 437-7700). Mum’s, a hip, up-to-date Italian restaurant, has a large and unusual Italian wine menu that includes the savagely dry Greco di Tufo among other unfamiliar names. The specialty pizza here is the truffle pizza, called “symphony of autumn” in Italian. Featuring porcini and other wild mushrooms together with white truffle shavings on a thin crust, it may be the only time in your life when you pay $22 for a pizza, but it is hauntingly aromatic. Lunch Mon.-Fri., dinner daily. All major credit cards. Full bar, Valet parking. Pizza: $5.90-$22. Pizza de Roma (18607 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana, (818) 343-6942). This tiny trattoria occupies the ground-floor space in Tarzana Town Plaza. Pizza comes in three sizes here--9, 12 and 15 inches--and 10 varieties. Try the 4 stagioni (four season) with mozzarella, tomato, zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms and prosciutto. The Roman-style pizza con patate (mozzarella, sliced potatoes and rosemary) and the specialty, pizza con gamberi e salmone (mozzarella, tomato, shrimp, salmon and garlic), contrast with the simpler basil, mushroom or pepperoni choices. All have moderately thin, crisp crusts. Lunch and dinner daily. MasterCard, Visa and American Express. Beer and wine. Parking in rear. Pizza: $4.95-$12.95.