So, great looking place, nice, minimal design... heard great things about it: 'authentic Neapolitan pizza', 'real italian pizza oven'... So, first thing, I order a glass of wine: no alcohol licence. Not their fault, the friendly waiter explained to me that the city council are dragging their heels over granting the licence, something I can well believe. Oh, well... pizza without wine is almost unthinkable for me. They do have the excellent (and rather expensive) Fentiman's soft drinks... although they need to stock the Dandelion & Burdock ;0) My friend ordered a ginger beer with passion fruit, which was lovely.
Anyway, we ordered our very reasonably-priced pizzas: my friend had an unusual pistachio and onion topping and I ordered the Marinara. Our pizzas arrived quickly, and they certainly don't look like your run-of-the-mill pizza: the crusts were pale, but dotted with black blisters - a sign that they've been cooked quickly at extremely high heat, just the way it should be done.
So I'd ordered a 'Marinara' but was surprised to find that it contained no seafood at all: in fact it was a vegan option! My fault for not checking the menu more closely. However, the topping was beautifully sweet cherry tomatoes with a great garlic kick, all helped along nicely by a great chili oil... but the secret of great pizza is the base, and this was where we felt the wheels fell off the wagon... spongy, stodgy, without a hint of crispness. After all the anticipation it was a real let-down... I couldn't even manage to eat the crusts, they were that heavy...
So, I don't know what went wrong, we arrived just as they'd opened, so maybe the oven wasn't up to its full temperature. I think my friend summed up our experience perfectly when she said: "Well, that was nothing special, was it?" read more