Are Pizza Hut’s Crafted Flatzz a hit? Or do they fall … flatzz?

Despite Americans eating an average of 2.5 tons of pizza a piece every year (don’t check that stat, it just feels right), I haven’t reviewed any pizza over the course of Snackology’s first year.

Thanks to Pizza Hut’s new Crafted Flatzz, we’re going to fix that.

What’s a Crafted Flatzz you ask? Well, Pizza Hut rolled out this new category of pizza this week, adding a new menu item under its “Adultzz Only” promotion. These personal pizzas are available in four core flavors with an additional fifth variety exclusive to different regions of the world.

Usually if I’m craving pizza, I go with a local place. But sometimes you’re specifically craving Pizza Hut, and you can only solve that craving with Pizza Hut. There’s something about the chain’s take on pizza — especially when paired with the fun of a Pizza Hut birthday party, a visit to the lunch buffet back when those were abundant or even the classic red Pizza Hut cup — that dips into your those core memories in a way that other pizza places just can’t match.

So does Pizza Hut’s new Crafted Flatzz hit the spot? Or do they fall flatzz? Sorry. Flat.

What they cost

Pizza Hut advertises that Crafted Flatzz are supposed to be just $5 if you buy them before 5 p.m. and notes that “prices may vary” after that time, but when I ordered my trio of Flatzz several hours past 5 p.m., they were still $5 a piece.

My thoughts

When I spotted the Crafted Flatzz on the Pizza Hut app on Friday, I was intrigued. I wasn’t sure what I was going to order for dinner that night, but after scrolling through the options for the Flatzz, they had my attention. At just five bucks a piece, I ordered three of them, covering my traditional pizza toppings with the Pepperoni Duo and Three Cheese options and adding the United States-specific Nashville Hot Chicken variety.

Upon opening the boxes, I instantly realized that the Crafted Flatzz are Pizza Hut’s take on the style of pizza you’d be familiar with if you live in an area where &Pizza does business. Flat pizza cut into slices that you can eat in a bite or three. Nothing wrong with that. I love &Pizza. It’s probably our daughter’s go-to suggestion for a lunch stop if we’re out running errands. (She’s a cheese pizza person, but I love their American Honey pizza.) How would Pizza Hut’s take on this style work?

The Pepperoni Duo boasts two kinds of pepperoni, with “classic and cup n’ crisp pepperoni come together over mozzarella and sweet marinara, topped with a savory cheese blend seasoning.” Pizza Hut was precise with its pepperoni distribution. Each slice got one piece of each kind of the topping.

This Crafted Flatzz is probably the closest to Pizza Hut’s traditional pizza. The sauce and cheese feels like what you’d get on a normal Pizza Hut pizza, and the addition of the crispy cup pepperoni is nice. (If you live in the Northern Virginia area, baddpizza does this kind of pizza very well. No surprise that a few guys from Western New York got this right.)

The Three Cheese flavor isn’t your regular Pizza Hut cheese pizza in flat format. No, it’s “a gooey, grown-up take on a classic with sweet marinara, mozzarella, parmesan, Romano and oregano.” Everyone knows that you can’t have pizza for grown-ups without at least three kinds of cheese.

This one was also good. The mix of the three cheeses elevates it a bit above the regular Pizza Hut cheese pizza while sticking to the chain’s roots with that sweet marinara sauce.

And then we have the Nashville Hot Chicken flavor.

Nashville Hot Chicken and I have a mixed history. Who hasn’t boldly and blindly ordered the hottest version of chicken at Hattie B’s after a day of visiting a few breweries when in Nashville? I assumed that Pizza Hut wouldn’t melt my face like the Shut the Cluck Up! level of heat did when I made my fateful decision at Hattie B’s.

Pizza Hut advertises the Nashville Hot Chicken flavor of Flatzz as “spicy, crispy and drizzled in pickle ranch, this recipe brings the heat with fiery Nashville Hot seasoning, fresh onions, melty mozzarella and a punchy pickle-flavored ranch sauce.”

This flavor of Flatzz brought just enough heat to make my eyebrows sweat a bit, but it wasn’t enough to make me worry about my life choices. The chicken comes in tiny meatball form, and the Flatzz that I got was abundantly drizzled in what I think was pickle ranch? I’m honestly not sure. The pictures of the Nashville Hot Chicken Flatzz provided by Pizza Hut show the sauce as a much more traditional ranch color while mine was definitely a more pickle-y green.

Snack score

🍪🍪🍪 (3 out of 5 cookies)

Pizza Hut’s new Crafted Flatzz are good, but if you’re ordering Pizza Hut because you want Pizza Hut, they’re probably not going to fulfill that craving. One of the best parts of getting Pizza Hut is their iconic pan crust — and the Flatzz are pretty much the opposite of that.

But if you’re a loyal Pizza Hut customer and you’re looking to try something new, you won’t be disappointed by the Crafted Flatzz.