MOTO Pizza
Inspired by Detroit pizzerias and Filipino recipes, this Seattle-based chain sells delicious "odd" pizzas in OC
Though Orange County pizza lovers are spoiled with choices representing many regionally popular pizza variations, Detroit-style pizzas aren’t especially common here: Right around the same time as personal-sized square pizza specialist Steel Pan Pizza closed at Stanton’s Rodeo 39 food hall in 2025, San Francisco-based chain Slice House appeared in Fountain Valley with three different styles of pizza, including Detroit pizzas served either by the brick-shaped piece or full pie – but there aren’t a lot of other OC options to choose from. That changed in mid-June 2026 when MOTO Pizza opened at the Miramar Food Hall in San Clemente, focusing almost exclusively on its own riffs on Detroit’s style.
Worth noting up front: Try not to confuse MOTO Pizza – a Seattle-based chain that’s currently expanding in Orange and San Diego Counties – with Mr. Moto Pizza, a San Diego-based chain that opened its first Orange County locations at the end of 2025, and serves New York-style slices. Despite their super-similar names, their pizzas and menus are substantially different from one another; MOTO Pizza’s San Clemente location only serves two-slice-equivalent Detroit-style personal pan pizzas, black garlic bread, several salads, and sweet-sauced soft serve ice creams, while Mr. Moto serves NY-style pizza slices – at less than half MOTO Pizza’s prices – plus full-sized pizzas, calzones, wings, and multiple cake/cannoli-style desserts. (Given their highly similar names and overlapping expansion plans, we wouldn’t be surprised to see some sort of trademark battle pop up between them.)
At the Miramar location, MOTO uses a touchscreen ordering system to offer guests 11 pizza recipes, ranging from basic cheese ($16) or pepperoni ($19) to slightly elevated hot honey/sausage/pepperoni Kissd ($19), two vegetarian pizzas ($18 each), and unique seafood options: Clam Chowdah ($20), Shrimp (with pineapple and calamansi lime, $20), and Crab ($35 with real Dungeness crab). Two Filipino-inspired pizzas, one with beef adobo and pickled cabbage ($20) and the other with lechon kawali pork belly and sausage ($20), are also on the menu; unlike MOTO’s other locations, full-sized pizzas aren’t (yet) available here.
Our group of three ordered three pizzas, and each found the two-piece bricks filling enough that we didn’t need much of anything else from the food hall. The most interesting version was the aforementioned clam pizza – notably neither as chowder-like as one might imagine from its name nor as excitingly spiked with cheese at the edges as in MOTO’s official photography. But it was topped with a thick minced clam and garlic sauce, bits of smoked bacon, and hot chili oil, all excellent additions to the cheese-crisped base block of tasty bread and tomato sauce. Its only true oddity was the inclusion of two full Manila clams that needed to have their meat separated and shells removed; we would have been happier without digging our fingers into the pizza.
MOTO’s second seafood pizza was topped with enough stringy crab meat to nearly justified its twice-as-high asking price, though MOTO’s seasoning treatment here – butter, thyme, and dill – was sort of basic, and Dungeness isn’t a super-premium crab. Only steps away, fellow Miramar vendor Lobster Lab is charging $25 to $34 for regular to XL-sized crab rolls, if you’re okay skipping the Detroit-style pizza base. Our third pizza, a basic pepperoni, was loaded with cup-and-char discs, covered in grated parmesan, and very good from edge to edge. This recipe is the closest MOTO comes to Slice House’s Detroit pizzas, though it’s easier to recommend the latter based on its roughly equivalent quality at a (much) lower price.
Overall, we enjoyed each of the MOTO pizzas we tried, and plan to revisit in the near future to sample more of the recipes – particularly the Filipino-inspired ones. We’ll update this article with additional details and photos whenever that happens.
Stats
Price: $$-$$$
Service: Counter
Open Since: 2021 (WA), 2026 (OC)
Address
1720 N. El Camino Real
San Clemente, CA 92672
Additional locations in Washington State
Instagram: @motopizzashop