Pizza Bocca Lupo

Location: San Jose, San Pedro St. Market
Cuisine type: Italian, Fire Oven Pizza
Atmosphere: open, community style seating shared among multiple small food vendors
Meal: late night snack
Overall grade: 7.67

Nina

What’s better for a late night snack than pizza (with beer)? Really good pizza with beer on tap, that’s what. While trying to watch one of the 49ers games on TV (a game much delayed by repeated power outages at Candlestick Park), we ended up in a new establishment in San Jose - a sort of marketplace on San Pedro street which was still partially in construction but had the game on in a dining area. You could pick up food from any of the restaurants in the market, drinks from any other, and take them to this common dining area to enjoy.
The only restaurant still open that late at night was Boca Luppo, a small pizza shop with a wood fire oven, baking up crispy thin crust pies with traditional toppings (fact emphasized on the menu by Italian names for each ingredient in large letters with the English translations demoted to fine print). We got a Pizza margherita with two topics - funghi and prosciutto crudo (essentially a cheese pizza with wild mushrooms and cured ham). The flavor really delivered - the crust was crunchy and light, the sauce was rich and aromatic, and the toppings were fresh . The pizza was large enough to serve one person for dinner entree or two for a game-time snack, and it was really delicious along with the beer on tap. I am looking forward to trying some of the other small restaurants with big personalities that will open in this place.

Food 9
Drinks 8 (from the adjacent bar)
Atmosphere 8
Service 6 (mostly self-service)
Value 7


Ben

This is a pizza place in the recently developing marketplace in San Jose (a few connected restaurants and bars with a common eating area of picnic tables and a TV. They offer a good combination of fresh ingredients and an assortment of gourmet toppings, we went with a mushroom and prosciutto pizza. The pizza was good, though a little pricy for the size (~$17 for a pizza for 2 and self service). I did love the community eating style - sharing long tables with people who picked up food at any of the other restaurants - and was a fun place to catch the end of a 49ers game with some fans. It's conveniently located next to a full bar with pretty good prices and a great beer selection (rated drinks highly though it's not actually the same establishment). Overall it's developing into a fun and trendy place to hang out, with lively and young crowd, and the popularity has really boomed over just a couple of months of being open.

Food 7
Drinks 9
Atmosphere 9
Service 7
Value 6