It was a windy, chilly day in Tournai, a beautiful city, just across the French border in Belgium, on the river Scheldt.
My wife, a Sicilian who grew up in Napoli, spotted this place as we were roaming around Tournai looking for a place to have lunch that would allow my service dog, Kemper, to join us. They were happy to have us and treated Kemper like a king, giving him cookies and petting him as they walked by.
Modern inside and tastefully, yet simply decorated, there is a huge wood fired oven just inside the door where delicious, authentic pizza napolitana is made. The staff are very kind and efficient, making our meal all the better. As soon as we sat down, we were greeted and given a small complimentary triangle of warm ciabatta topped with chopped tomato tossed in EVO and herbs.
We started with some house red wine (€8/50 cl) and an Affettati Mixte (€15), a huge, generous wood platter filled with a tasty variety of Italian salamis and hams. Along with the fresh bread, it was a delightful start to our meal.
My wife dislikes tomatoes, so she ordered the Pizza 4 Formaggi (€14), topped with a little cream and an abundance of mozzarella, gorgonzola, emmental, parmigiano, then topped with a little EVO. She does not hand out praise easily, especially when it comes to pizza, but she gave it two thumbs up ... Mamma Mia!
I went with my favorite, Pizza Diavola (€13.50), coming with tomato sauce, mozzarella, slices of salami, and olio piccante (EVO infused with red chili peppers). Like my wife's, the pizza dough was thrown and perfectly baked in the neapolitan way, the only difference from pizza in Naples being that the cheese and toppings are more abundant here. It was delicioso ... OOH-RAH!
Santo, the owner, hails from Pompeii - a relative suburb of Naples - and was extremely nice, making us feel very welcome while he manned the pizza oven and delivered food.
Our feast was a relative bargain at €53.50, considering prices in all of the other restaurants we saw in Tournai were quite high with lunch entrees mostly starting at at around €17.00 ... WTFO!
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