For this review, we visited two restaurants offering low carb (or lower carb) Pizza varieties! We went to both Donatos — a traditional pizza chain (that offers take out, delivery, and dine-in options), and the up-and-coming Papa Murphy's — a "take and bake" pizza spot that prepares restaurant style pizza that you take home and pop in the oven to bake and serve hot.

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Papa Murphy's...

Papa Murphy's now covers more than 1/2 of the United States, and is growing leaps and bounds. We visited the Xenia, Ohio location on Wednesday, March 17th, 2004.  Here's how Papa Murphy's describes their concept:

"Papa Murphy’s Take N’ Bake Pizza is the pioneer of the take and bake concept. We are the largest take and bake pizza company in the world. We offer only the freshest and highest quality ingredients with our freshly grated cheeses and our dough that is prepared in house daily. We offer our products at a low price point, and we also offer our customer the opportunity to cook their pizza when they are ready to eat it."

There are currently over 800 Papa Murphy's stores in 23 states. And the ingredients they pile on their pies is pretty impressive.

They use exceptional varieties of pepperoni (made in a traditional Italian method using a unique blend of 8 herbs and spices), mushrooms (using only Number 1 grade button and medium mushrooms), and sausage (specially prepared and aged.) And they don't use MSG, artificial colors, fillers or TVP (textured vegetable protein) in any of their products.

So how is it low carb?

Because of the crust it's served on... it's very thin and much higher in protein than standard crusts. Yet it tastes like a traditional thin-n-crispy pizza crust. They call it their "deLITE Pizza", as it has nearly ½ the calories of standard pizza, and LESS than ½ the carbs (a 60% reduction, actually.)

You can choose from the Thin Crust deLITE Pepperoni, the Thin Crust deLITE Meat made with Pepperoni, Beef, and Italian Sausage or the Thin Crust deLITE Veggie with your choice of Crushed Tomato Sauce or Creamy Garlic Ranch Sauce, plus Spinach, Mushrooms and Tomatoes.

Again, these are "lowER" carb pizzas that come in at 13 to 14 grams of total carbs (around 8 net carbs after fiber reduction) per slice. And a slice is 1/8 of a large (16") pizza. So it's not a bad carb deal for an excellent tasting pizza (WITH CRUST!)

The deLITE has special baking instructions, but they're easy and seemed to be pretty foolproof. We had no problem turning out fabulous pizza in short order from our home oven.

It was a price bargain as well, at $5.99. It was far more pizza than Neil and I could eat in two meals.

Their Thin Crust deLITE pizza was successfully tested in the Western United States for five months prior to the national launch (on February 1, 2004) and customers seemed to love it. We did too. So if you're looking for fresh (very fresh!) hot pizza and you don't want to blow the diet, Papa Murphy's might be just what you're looking for.

Donatos Pizza...

Our next stop was Donatos Pizza... a large chain with stores across much of the U.S. and spreading. The largest number are in Ohio, as the chain was started by Jim Grote, a college sophomore at Ohio State University in 1963.

A short time ago, Donatos Pizza began getting so many requests for a "no crust" pizza by low carbers, that they decided it was time it debuted as a regular menu offering.

And so Donatos Low Carb/No Dough pizza was born. Available as an individual size (7") only, they serve up plentiful toppings baked on top of a "soy crumbles" base. You can order this by creating any toppings you like, or you can order it made in one of their "standards": "The Works", "Vegy", "Mariachi" (beef or chicken with peppers, cheddar and provolone cheeses, Roma tomatoes, Mariachi spices, and sour cream), "Serious Meat", or "Pepperoni."

These come in at 14 to 19 net carb grams for the whole pizza. Not bad for a whole meal.... and again, the price is right also at $3.89 to $4.89 each.

While it's not on the regular menu, you might want to try the "Philly Cheesesteak" in the "No Dough" variety.

But are they good? Well, they're not bad... the toppings
are good as you might expect. But we wondered if the
"soy crumbles" really added anything to the dish... they "get lost" in the toppings and add a fair hint of soy taste to pizza if you're sensitive to the taste of soy. (I noticed it strongly; Neil didn't.) I think the cheese alone made a great crust and the soy was unnecessary.

You might want to try one of their side salads with this... they're big and offer a host of low carb ingredients (Their Tuscan Chicken Caesar is a gem! Just leave off the croutons.)

Overall, it was a pretty good meal and we do recommend them. And of course we applaud their vision in offering us this new option!

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