Indian Pizza: Eat or Pass?

The good, the bad and the ugly of Indian pizza

If you love Indian pizza, you may want to read a different post.

Indian pizza is a worldwide phenomenon. I've had it on the streets of India as well as from neighborhood pizza shops in the US and today I'm going to share the good, the bad and the ugly of Indian pizza.

In case you're wondering, Indian pizza is essentially pizza with Indian toppings. These toppings range from onions, ginger, garlic, cilantro to tandoori chicken and paneer tikka. I've also seen Indian pizza made with naan as the base, a butter chicken sauce and fake mozzarella to top it off.

I would not call myself a picky eater. I would call myself an adventurous eater. I'll try anything as long as it doesn't involve bugs because I love experiencing new dishes and discovering new ways to prepare an ingredient. I've eaten on the streets of India and experienced 20-something course meals at the world's best fine dining restaurants. I thoroughly enjoy both of those styles of eating.

However, I'm not sure I'm fully sold on the concept of Indian pizza.

The first time I had Indian pizza was in India on the streets of Delhi. They didn't call it Indian pizza because to them, pizza is tomato sauce and cheese on a piece of bread and that's what they were serving. However, these 'pizzas' were made with an Indian's palate in mind and used local ingredients like red onions, green chilies, paneer, cilantro and ginger, garlic pastes. The tomato sauce was flavored with cumin and chilies and the toppings ranged from paneer to potato. Instead of basil, the herb of choice was cilantro.

The result is a delicious dish that I wouldn't call pizza.

I'm not opposed to fusion food but I definitely think that there are some guardrails.

If you visit a Domino's in India, they have numerous innovative toppings on offer. The 4 Cheese pizza comes with a hit of Ghost pepper and there are 12 other kinds of vegetarian pizzas compared to 2 vegetarian options on the American Dominos menu.

When I lived in India, my go-to was always the Margherita or the 4 Cheese Pizza. I have ordered the pepperoni pizza before but I didn't know it was made of chicken. It was good!

There weren't a lot of pizza restaurants in India when I was growing up and neither was it a regular part of my diet so Dominos and Pizza Hut were pretty special and I have many happy memories associated with these spots. I remember having a birthday party at a Dominos once and I felt so cool!

A quick search on Google for Indian pizza in the US yields quite a few results to my surprise. I didn't know there was so much Indian pizza in Las Vegas. The menu features unique combinations of ingredients. Honestly, it looks like they took the most popular Indian entrees and dumped them on top of a pizza crust. They don't look or sound appetizing to me. I'd rather have naan to dip into a makhani sauce than eat the same combination in the form of a pizza.

I've had tandoori chicken pizza, paneer tikka pizza, pav bhaji pizza and some other whacky combinations when I lived in Northern California. I tried it once but never went back for a second and that sums up my thoughts on Indian pizza in general.

I have nothing against fusion food. I think all food is fusion because it's influenced by it's surroundings, the preferences of the people that live there, it's history and many other factors. Cuisines are constantly evolving and fusion of flavors is a natural part of that process.

However, I have a problem with it when the flavor combinations seem forced and the dish is better in your head that on a plate. Indian pizza falls into this category for me. I love Indian food and I love pizza and I don't see why you need to combine those two.

Have you had Indian pizza before and what do you think?