Franco Manca - Londons Best Pizza
If I was to be stranded on a desert island for the rest of my life and had to choose 3 food types to survive on for all eternity I would have to put pizza on the list. So it was with much excitement that I read about Franco Manca “London’s best pizza”. Last Saturday I was off to see a concert at the Brixton Academy, or as it now calls itself O2 Academy Brixton, so I grabbed to opportunity to visit Franco for a pre-show dinner.
The restaurant is located in Brixton Market and not ideally beside a fishmonger although where we were sitting I didn’t get any fish smells. Due to it’s location in a market it’s opening hours are aligned with the markets so the place closes at 5pm and isn’t open Sundays. We got there and it was busy enough so when we saw a couple get up to leave we grabbed the first waiter we saw and asked if we could sit there, he said yes and so we did. This turned out to be against Marco’s rules, he likes to take orders first and then seat you. Luckily he was very pleasant and just gave us a “warning”.
The menu is very simple with only six types of pizza to choose from although you can get extra toppings. I went for number 4 a pizza napoletana, D went for a the simple tomato, mozzarella, and basil and we got a bottle of organic Dolcetto (red) wine. From where we were seated you could watch the pizza being prepared including the traditional tossing in the air, i am sure there is a technical word for that. There was a great buzz in the place and they appeared to be doing a brisk trade in takeaways.
The pizzas arrived quickly and were rustic looking, in a very good way. The were nice, very nice but at first I was a little disappointed. I was expecting the most amazing pizza ever yet all I got was a very nice pizza. It wasn’t until I was half way through my pizza that I realised what was so special, it was the base. Normally pizza bases are just carriers for the sauce and toppings and are often pushed to one side. However here I was munching my way through every last crust, the sourdough base makes all the difference. So what is so special about the base, well I will let Marco explain:
The pizza is made from slow-rising sourdough (minimum 20 hours) and is baked in a wood burning ‘Tufac’ brick oven made in Naples by a specialist artisan. This oven produces a heat of about 500 degrees c (930 degrees f). The lsow levitation and blast-cooking process lock in the flours natural aroma and moisture giving it a soft and easily digestible crust. As a result, the edge (cornicione) is excellent and shouldn’t be discarded. This system was originally developed by the greek settlers who, in the 5th century BC. founded Neapolis (new town). They adapted a pre-existing baking tradition to develop this new ‘pita’, which though experimentation, luck and linguistic distortions, became pizza.
This was a great meal and fantastic value, the pizzas were about £5-£6 each and the wine a bargain at £7.50. I will definitely be going back to Brixton Market for a bit of shopping followed by what is so far for me London’s Best Pizza.
