Kevelos Pizza Cat Street Omotesando
My wife works in a neighborhood called Omotesando, which is just a short hop from colorful Harajuku. Omotesando is full of fancy stores that sell thousand-dollar T-shirts and stuff like that. As such, a lot of the dining options are expensive and fancy (or just expensive), and some have long lines full of tourists.
While there are affordable options like Mr. Farmer, Yakiniku Yamawaru, and Taste the World, they’re all on the other end of Omotesando shopping street, and thus too far to go to on a 40-minute lunch break. Most people bring a lunch to work because eating out is impossible. That’s why we were excited when we found an affordable lunch deal just off Omotesando, at a pizza place that looked really good. We set out to learn if it was really as cheap as it appeared, if the food was worth eating, and if one could be served fast enough to eat it on a lunch break.
Kevelos Cat Street in Omotesando and its amazing lunch deal
Just off Omotesando-dori, in the direction of Shibuya, is a lane called Cat Street. It’s full of trendy clothing stores, and if you keep going down it, you’ll end up at Smokehouse and some other cool places. When walking from Omotesando to Shibuya, Cat Street is the way to go. No, I don’t know why it’s called Cat Street, and I see no reason to look it up.
If you take a short detour off Cat Street, a quick right and left will lead you to another lane with a bunch of eateries. We walked past a ramen place where white people were lined up in what can only be described as a “sweaty butt snake” formation. I don’t know why someone would wait an hour for ramen. Don't they know all ramen is good, and that the best ramen place in Tokyo is the one I like best?
This thin street is where you’ll find Kevelos, a pizza place that uses a wood oven and serves traditional Neapolitan pizzas. There wasn’t a big crowd there, maybe half to two-thirds of the tables full, so we were able to go right in. The menu posted outside advertised what we were there for: an incredibly cheap lunch deal. Each day, one pizza is only 1,000 yen, which is $6.32 as of this writing.
They sat us at the counter and we looked at our options. While the special is 1,000 yen, it was a Genovese, which isn’t what we like. I’m a marinara guy, so I went with that at 1,100 yen, while Eriko got a Margherita at 1,400 yen. The lunch deal is advertised as coming with salad and peach iced tea, but we saw at the top that salad and tea was 727 yen. Was the salad/tea extra? And could we avoid getting it if we didn’t want it?
The answer was no, we couldn’t avoid getting it. We were not asked. They just brought tea, which they generously refill whenever they see your glass is low. They also brought a salad that wasn’t bad but had a strange dressing on it. They told us it would take about 20 minutes, which is a long time at lunch when the place isn’t full, but you quickly see why.
Kevelos is a one-man show, and the guy makes your pizza right in front of you. We could see him work the dough, add the sauce, shave the garlic super thin, put the pizzas in the oven, and add more wood from his little store of tiny logs. It was fun to watch, and impressive how white his apron was. Eriko made sure to let me know that if it were me, I would have gotten sauce everywhere. She is not wrong.
Pizza marinara at Kevelos Omotesando
I enjoy the artisan pizza boom because I like Neapolitan pizza, especially marinara. But one thing I don’t like about it is the fake insouciance. If you order a pizza from a chain, they’ll carefully make sure the toppings are evenly distributed so that everyone gets some pepperoni. But these artisan guys have to be like, “I am full of passion! I just throw toppings everywhere!” They flick their wrists in a mad performance to show how little they care about where the toppings land. It ends up requiring more effort to unevenly scatter the toppings over half the pizza than if they’d just spread it out like normal.
Anyway, the toppings were uneven, but there was a ton of garlic on this thing. Compared to Savoy, this one tasted more garlic-forward. I would also say the tomato sauce was more flavorful than at Savoy. It was really tasty. I ate this pizza unbelievably fast.
My criticisms would be that it was a bit too salty (I could see him add the salt with a little wrist-flourish) and that the crust was just a hair too thin, so that the edge of the slice flopped down when it was picked up or moved, making that first bite hard to eat. But it wasn’t a heavy experience; I felt good afterward, and was super happy with my order. And I got to try a little of Eriko’s too!
Pizza margherita at Kevelos
The crust on Eriko’s Margherita was pretty similar to that on my marinara, but there was less sauce and a whoooole lot of cheese. Even the basil couldn’t come through because the cheese flavor overwhelmed it. If you like cheese, this one will satisfy you.
I rarely eat cheese on pizza, and I think the fact that I’ve become so used to cheese-less marinara has made the taste of cheese ON a pizza to be weird to me. Either that, or this place just uses weird cheese. Regardless, I thought the cheese tasted strange. It was a bit bland. I definitely preferred my own pizza.
And you know what? Eriko agreed with me. Again, if you like cheese, you might love this, or one of their other concoctions like the Bismarck or blue cheese pizzas, but for us, marinara is just the way to go. And the chef at Kevelos makes a great marinara.
Verdict: is Kevelos worth visiting for lunch?
When we got the bill, it was only 2,500 yen, meaning it was NOT more for the salad and tea. The restaurant is cash only, so you won’t be getting credit card points, but that price is just incredible. 1,100 yen for a great pizza marinara, salad, and unlimited tea. That’s seven bucks! And we don’t tip in Japan! I don’t think there’s anywhere in our neighborhood with a deal this good.
The one drawback was that the careful preparation of the pizza takes a while. As such, it takes too long to be an option for a 40-minute lunch break. Eriko probably won’t be able to stop in for some pizza during her workday. I, however, make my own hours, and I’ll be happy to drop in here whenever I feel like it.
I would say Kevelos is a step below Savoy and L’Antica da Michele, but at least for the marinara, it’s on the same level as Gino Sorbillo, at a lower price.
“It’s good this isn’t in our neighborhood,” said Eriko. “You would go every day.”
Yup. I would.
Where to find Kevelos pizza in Tokyo
Address: 〒150-0001 Tokyo, Shibuya, Jingumae, 6 Chome−12−４−ヒダノビル １F
Hours: 11:30am-3pm, 6pm-10pm M-F, 12-10pm Sat-Sun
Website: Pizza Kevelos
Apparently, Kevelos has a second location, located in Mishuku. Where is that? It’s… a 20-minute walk from our house. Uh-oh. I’m about to get very, very fat.
