Pizzeria Zizzi 73-75 The Strand London WC2R 0DE
The entrance
View of the oven
Spacious room
You come through the stairs in the background
Sober but nice design
Back again at Zizzi for a quick lunch near the office. Why again a pizza place? Well first I like pizzas in general and second I want to get erase the awful pizza I had in Tooting Broadway from my memory! Last time we came here we had a pizza Trentino and a pizza Fiorentina with the rustica option for a “Bigger, thinner and crispier bases, which means more room for your favourite topping!” as they say. In short, with that option you supersize your pizza.
Today we ordered a pizza Sofia rustica (spicy chicken, pepperoni, oven roasted sausage, tomato, mozzarella, finished with green chilli and fresh rosemary – £10.90) and a pizza Cotto e funghi rustica (cotto ham, field mushrooms, mascarpone, tomato, mozzarella and thyme – £10.45) and a 66cl Peroni beer (£5.95).
The beer was cold. A good start.
The two large pizzas
Let's not forget the chilli oil!
Pizza Sofia rustica
Close-up
The pizza Sofia rustica was decent. I did not think much of the spicy chicken bits that I found a little bland. The oven roasted sausage bits were too small to really have a taste. The green chilli slices were extremely hot. I am into spicy oil and food so usually I can handle hot stuff quite well but these were like dynamite. Still, not a bad pizza but the other one was much better.
Pizza Cotto e funghi rustica
The pizza Cotto e funghi rustica was delicious, extremely creamy and with a thin crispy base. The ham was perfect, not oversalty as often happens and the mushrooms were tasty. The creamy flavour comes from the mascarpone which is a very fatty cheese made of fresh cream.
2/3 Sofia, 1/3 Cotto e funghi rustica
Cost and conclusion: Zizzi is currently offering £1 main meals when you buy any other (go to zizzi.co.uk) so the lunch was less than £20 which is an excellent deal. Also, tips are discretionary here and not automatically included in the bill which is good. All restaurants should follow that rule! The service was fine, so they deserved the tip. With so many tourist traps around the Strand and Covent garden it is nice to have a decent Italian restaurant offering good value for money.
Pizzeria Fiorentina 115 Tooting High Street London SW17 0SY
Pizzeria Fiorentina
There is a telephone booth inside the restaurant
While going to a pet store for buying a flea bomb (never let a stray cat visit your house by the way…) I noticed the pizzeria Fiorentina at the corner of Tooting High St. It looked nice from outside with its nice mix of pale orange and strong green colours. Inside, it is not fancy but it is not bad either, with rustic tables. One curiosity was a red telephone booth in the room. I did not go closer to check if it was real or some kind of furniture or even a fridge, who knows?
We ordered two pizzas: the pizza D’Ischia made of mozzarella, tomato, ham, mushrooms and olivies (£6.95) and a pizza Calzone (mozzarella, tomato, salami, ham, egg and olivies – £6.95). For drinking, we had an Italian Moretti beer (£2.75) and an Italian sparkling Monteforte water (£1.75). While the beer was perfectly cold, the water was not and was served with a glass full of icecubes and a slice of lemon.
Moretti beer but Peroni glass!
The beer was fine, while we regretted the water was not cold
We waited a long time to get our pizzas. I have never waited that long for just a pizza in my life. The restaurant was hardly full (we were the only clients!) so it was a little strange. After about 40 minutes or so they eventually arrived. First, we were surprised by their size which was small compared to what we usually get in other pizzerias. They look big in the pictures below but the plates were on the small side. Also, they looked too burnt.
The pizzas
Pizza calzone
The pizza calzone was alright at the beginning, but the salt (coming from the ham probably) eventually got me. The mozzarella cheese did not have any flavour, same for the ham (bar the salt) and the base was like bread. I certainly did not enjoy it and it was probably the worst pizza I had for a while, challenging my last, and unique, experience at Pizza Hut near Wandsworth Town 5 years ago.
The calzone is supposed to have an egg
One thing really bothered me. I chose the calzone because the menu mentioned an egg and it has been a long time I did not have that kind of calzone pizza. Well, the egg was nowhere! I thought my friend had it because we shared half of the pizza so we could both get a taste of the pizzas but she did not get it either.
Pizza D'Ischia
The pizza D’Ischia was maybe better than the calzone because it was crispier. The base was very bland though and overall the pizza was quite salty too. We thought this one looked like some average frozen pizza you can get at the supermarket. Both pizzas were quite dense, with a very compact and heavy base and – despite not finishing the pizzas – we did not feel well on the way home.
Cost and conclusion: it was £18.40 service charge not included. While it is a small bill we did not enjoy our meals. The last experience at Franco Manca was not good with a very average pizza but it was still way ahead compared to these. If you are looking for pizzas near Tooting Broadway I recommend Limoncello and Sette Bello where the atmosphere is nice and the restaurants are run by Italians. Here, the atmosphere was zero. On the upside, the prices for the drinks were reasonable.
Italian restaurant Pizza Metro 64 Battersea Rise London SW11 1EQ
Pizza Metro
It has been over a month since we have been to Pizza Metro, not that we haven’t tried but it is often very busy. Tonight it looked good for a revisit. Last time we had the Ripieno which is a kind of calzone pizza with ricotta, parmesan, ham, basil, Napoli salame, tomatoes, and mozzarella (£9.95) and the Diego’s with mozzarella, buffalo ricotta, Napoli salame, rocket, basil, olive oil and parmesan (£9.95). This time we had again the Ripieno and I decided to try another pizza just to see if they were lucky previously or really good at cooking all kinds of pizzas 😉 The new pizza was the Panna pizza made of thick Italian cream, mushrooms, ham, Napoli salami, mozzarella, basil and parmesan (£9.95). We also ordered some sparkling water (£3.25) and a good Menabrea lager beer made with corn (£3.95). It is a little bitter in case you do not like bitter beer.
Good Menabrea beer
The two pizzas
Ripieno pizza
The Ripieno pizza was – as previously – very good. It is a pizza that holds its heat very well, so even if you take your time eating, is going to stay nice and hot and fresh to the end. It is not an especially crispy pizza, but has a nice mix of flavours. Definitely worth trying.
Panna pizza
The Panna pizza was also a good choice. Heavy cream on a pizza has the potential to be a bit sickly, but Pizza Metro get the balance right here. It is just enough cream to complement the rest of the toppings, but doesn’t overpower. Another good discovery.
Conclusion and cost: it was £31.11 with the 12.5% “optional” service charge included. As usual, I will complain about the service charge being automatically added to the bill. It should be fully left at the discretion of the clients. That said, in this case they deserved it as they were friendly and efficient. We really like the decor which is much better than at nearby Donna Margherita and the pizzas were better too this time. Highly recommended if you are near Clapham Junction!
Italian Restaurant Zizzi 73-75 The Strand London WC2R 0DE
Inside Zizzi
The tables
We have been to Zizzi a few times but it has been a while since we were last there. Back for a review now! Zizzi is an Italian chain, with a restaurant located on The Strand. We do not see much of it from the street but it is quite big. Everything is located in the basement and from upstairs we have a good overview of the whole dining area and the kitchen, huge woodstone oven included. It is nicely decorated for a basic chain restaurant.
We ordered a pizza Fiorentina (Spinach, buffalo milk ricotta, egg, tomato, mozzarella, finished with garlic oil, grated nutmeg and grana panado cheese – £7.95) and a pizza Trentino (Smoked mountain ham, buffalo milk mozzarella, santos tomatoes, rocket and grana padano cheese – £9.50). Both with their new rustica pizza option (£1.95 more per pizza) described as “Bigger, thinner and crispier bases, which means more room for your favourite topping!”. We ordered a large bottle of Peroni beer (£5.95) too.
Zizzi does not have the best pizzas in London by any stretch of the imagination, but it does very well for a chain. The Fiorentina pizza was pretty good. The rustica option (rectangular pizza with a thin base) is a good addition to their menu, and the thinner crispier (without being hard) base is an improvement on their usual style. In the case of the Fiorentina pizza, that means enough room for 2 eggs. They were perfectly cooked, still liquid inside. An interesting change to the topping since the last time I took this pizza is the addition of buffalo ricotta – which has a sort of whipped cream-like texture. I have not quite decided yet if I like that or not, but it certainly makes the pizza that bit more interesting. The Trentino pizza was nice, with excellent ham and buffalo mozzarella. It is a little like a copy of my favourite Buffalo pizza at Pizzeria Rustica in Richmond – well below Rustica’s standard, while still being good. The beer was perfectly cold. Not that common in London.
Cold Peroni beer
Pizza Fiorentina
Details of the pizza Fiorentina
Pizza Trentino
Details of the pizza Trentino
The pizzas were served on a nice wooden tray
Cost and conclusion: it was £27.30 service charge not included. At Zizzi all tips and gratuities are discretionary. I really like that policy. Since the service was good, they got a tip of course. Overall, a decent meal and a good safe option on the high street especially compared to the Fire and Stone not far away. We will be back, especially since the office is only two minutes walk away.
Franco Manca Pizzeria 4 Market Row, Electric Lane, Brixton SW9 8LD London Open from Monday to Saturday 12-5
A revisit to Franco Manca was needed to compare it again to Pizzeria Rustica, since we have been to the latter recently. At our last visit we learnt to come there for about 11:40 to secure our seats (you cannot book) and indeed the restaurant got quickly full by 12 with a queue already starting to be long at 12:20, creating some congestion to that end of the market.
We sat on the opposite side of the fishmonger to avoid the fish smell (read the previous review here) and it was better indeed but unfortunately it was quite windy and we were even feeling cold. They must have read our thoughts as they put the heater above us on
We ordered their pizza #1 (Tomato, mozzarella, basil) and their pizza special of the day which was like the Bianca we had last time but without the ham, and with aubergines instead. Last time we ate here we were quite impressed by the quality of the organic sourdough. This time it was not really the case. The base was not very moist on the inside and not crispy on the outside either. It was not bad but it was average. We were a little disappointed by that, since it is their only selling point for us. To be fair, it is still great to have organic food that cheap: organic tomatoes from Italy, organic cheese from Somerset, organic oil from Spain and Italy, organic sourdough etc and even a homemade organic lemonade (£2.80) which was ok (served cold and not too sweet), and certainly better than the Hepworth organic beer I had last time (it has been replaced by another beer by the way).
Organic lemonade
Pizza #1
Pizza "Special"
Overview of the two pizzas
Cost and conclusion: for about £14 in all for two people it is still a great value for money. The only problem for us is we had better value for money last time when the pizzas were better, even fantastic! The service was still friendly. My preference for pizzas in London still goes to Rustica in Richmond. We have been there about 10 times and they consistently have excellent pizzas. Recommended if you are in Brixton but I would not do the trip just for the pizzas.
