Folks Pizzeria at the Helms District: Culver City’s Best New Pizza Is Here

The best new pizza in Culver City for 2026 arrived quietly on May 14, tucked into a corner of the Helms Design District that has seen its share of openings. But Folks Pizzeria is not another middling restaurant in a good-looking room. The Orange County sourdough cult — which spent years turning Costa Mesa regulars into people who make a special trip for pizza — has finally crossed into Los Angeles, and its Helms debut is everything the Westside has been waiting for.

The Crust Is the Whole Point

Walk past the patio on Helms Ave on any given Wednesday evening and you’ll spot it immediately: a table of four in the golden-hour light, each person lifting a slice and doing that thing where you pause to look at it before you take a bite. That’s the Folks crust. It blisters in the wood-fired oven into a fat, honeycombed ring — puffy, chewy, slightly charred at the edges, with an interior that pulls apart like good sourdough bread. The three-day fermentation process gives it a faint tang that most pizza crusts never bother achieving.

The house-made ranch that arrives at the table alongside your pie isn’t an afterthought. It’s tangy, herbaceous, and calibrated specifically for dunking that last inch of crust. We ate it with a spoon at one point and regret nothing.

What to Order

The menu rotates seasonally, which is either the best or the most annoying thing depending on when you visit. Right now, if you lean white pie, the asparagus and spring pea pizza is the move — a light, grassy combination that tastes specifically like this month and will be gone in a few weeks. For the red pie contingent, the fennel sausage is the anchor of the menu: bright tomato, pools of fennel-forward sausage, and basil that wilts just enough from the oven heat.

Start with the spinach dip arancini. It sounds like a bar menu afterthought. It is not. They arrive crispy and hot, yielding to a molten center of spinach and cheese that redefines what arancini is supposed to taste like. Order one per table and watch the negotiation that follows over the last one.

The 14-inch pies are designed for two people, though one person eating alone and calling it a day is a completely valid choice. Folks doesn’t do slices, which keeps the quality control tight and means your pizza arrives whole and hot, every time.

“The blistered, honeycombed crust just might be the best part — especially when you dip it in their tangy house ranch. This is the pizza that earns the drive to Culver City.”

The Wine and the Amaro Program

Folks takes its drinks seriously, which puts it in a different category than most pizzerias. The natural wine list pulls from Willamette Valley and Tuscany with the kind of curation that suggests someone did their homework — there are skin-contact options, low-intervention reds, and a rotating glass pour that changes often enough to give regulars a reason to keep asking what’s new.

The craft cocktail side leans into amaro-sodas: lighter, lower-ABV drinks that pair well with food and don’t compete with the pizza. On a hot Westside evening, an amaro-soda and a spring pea white pie on the front patio is one of the better decisions you can make in 2026. For a deeper dive into the Westside’s best outdoor dining experiences, the patio here belongs on any short list.

The Helms Design District Setting

The space at 3273 Helms Ave was previously Lustig, and whoever redesigned it understood restraint. The room is mod and slightly sophisticated without being precious — warm materials, a pizza counter you can watch from the bar, and a front patio that opens onto the courtyard energy of the Helms Design District. It’s the kind of room where office workers with messenger bags drink aperitivo and first-dates feel easy. Nobody’s trying too hard.

The Helms Design District itself is one of the more interesting pockets of Culver City — the kind of neighborhood that rewards walking around before or after dinner. If you’re coming from the Westside, it’s an easy 15-minute drive from Santa Monica. Worth knowing: Folks is also one of the most interesting additions to the broader West LA dining landscape that already includes standouts like Broken Spanish Comedor on the Culver City side and the full range of top-tier Santa Monica tables farther west.

Walk-ins are prioritized — Folks doesn’t do traditional reservations — and you can join the Yelp waitlist if you don’t want to stand outside. On a Friday night, expect a 30-to-45-minute wait. On a Wednesday, you might walk right in. The Thursday sweet spot is real.