Table for 5: Pepe’s Pizza Family Review at OSL Gardermoen Airport in Norway | Say Yes to the Garlic Bread

All things considered, during our eight day trip in Norway we actually spent a majority of our time at the Oslo Airport, OSL. Three of those eight days were spent at the Oslo Gardermoen Airport in fact. We had zero success getting on a flight to Tromsø for Christmas, and we had zero success getting on a flight out of Oslo prior to New Year’s Eve – I guess the moral of this story is avoid OSL when flying standby during the winter. Maybe summer is better, but my sources say go through Copenhagen. During our time hanging out in the airport we ate at Pepe’s Pizza. This place only has 2.5 stars, but we thought it was pretty great – maybe we were just that starving! 

► Ranking: #cleandiaper

Pepe’s Pizza
OSL International Airport
Oslo, Norway
Phone: +47 22 22 55 55

I don’t actually love pizza. I would marry Garlic Bread if I could, and yes it deserves capitalization as a proper pronoun, but pizza has too much tomato sauce. Mix that sauce with a little cream and color me happy, but I challenge you to tell me the last time you saw tomato cream based sauce on a pizza that wasn’t an alfredo pizza. Gross, btw. I just want tomato cream based sauce with sausage, red onions, and pineapple. I know I’m alone in this.

Pepe’s Pizza is conveniently located outside of security. I’m not sure if I think this is a good thing, or a bad thing. I’m torn about airport layouts. If I were ever asked to design one, with all my absent years of architectural expertise and practice and schooling, the first thing I would demand is connected terminals. As a standby traveler the worst part about airport design is missing a flight and having to exit and reenter security to try a new route. Second to that is restaurant and shopping options. We are more of get to the airport as late as possible to make your flight on time type people, but on a few occasions we have wanted to have a meal before going through security. I wish more airports would design both pre and post security options, even though this is so rare and easily avoided. In this instance, we were staying across the street at the Raddison Blu Airport Hotel, so we loved being able to walk across the road through the covered pathway and get something substantial to eat – especially considering we had just flown from Kirkenes and had been eating convenience store food for three days.

The restaurant offers a menu in both Norwegian and English with several pizza combinations (none with a tomato cream base), Cesar salads, drinks, and of course, garlic bread. We enjoyed a pepperoni and ham pizza plus a double order of garlic bread and a salad. I ate all the garlic bread and I didn’t apologize. The melted butter seeped through the softly risen bread offering a textured crunchy top and heavy garlic aroma and taste.

The salad was good enough, except for the bacon that was more soft than crisp which was immediately disappointing.

The kids and Gabriel devoured the huge pizza, while I ordered a single slice of BBQ. It’s no surprise the garlic bread was my favorite, but the pizza was excellent. It had a thick, chewy crust with plentiful toppings. The flavors and ingredients tasted freshly prepared, clean and natural which seems to be a point of pride for Norwegians. The pizza was made to order and came to us hot and steamy.

By the time our meal came out of the oven, we hadn’t eaten a true meal in 48 hours. We were starving. It would be interesting to go back and see if the pizza matches up to our initial impression of it.

► For Kids: Natural choice as children all over the world seem to love pizza. Pepe’s Pizza is good pizza without synthetic tasting toppings and ingredients. The restaurant offers a lot of seating and a variety of menu options for all palates.

Where is the best place you’ve ever had pizza? We’d love to try it out!

► Nap-Time Version: When you are stranded in OSL, Pepe’s Pizza is a welcome choice to feed your growling appetite.

We ate at Pepe’s Pizza on our second go round at OSL. The first time we were stranded in Oslo, we found ourselves praying for Christmas presents, then praying for fresh air, and finally praying for an airbnb to save Christmas. Read all about it.