Restaurant reviews by Justin Tanner, our retired food critic who is already planning to blow his reinstated winter fuel allowance on a massive piss-up
EVERYTHING’S got to be tarted up and made ‘special’ these days, hasn’t it? Even pizzas, beautiful in their simplicity, a timeless British classic.
I know my pizzas. Been living on a diet of Domino’s deliveries since the missus buggered off with her swanky twat of a boss who apparently ‘understands her emotional needs’. Bloke must have the patience of a saint, but I digress.
There’s an ‘artisan pizza ristorante’ opened round the corner from my flat. Apparently ‘artisan’ means it’s produced using traditional methods by hand. Like pizzas haven’t been made that way since God was a lad. But I’m giving it a go. There’s a free drink as an opening promotional offer.
I get off to a bad start when I rock up and ask for a Stella, only to be told the offer only applies to Italian booze. Pint of piss-weak Peroni it is then. I peruse the menu. There’s a meagre selection of starters, or ‘antipasti’ as the Eyeties insist on calling them. When in England speak bloody English, I say.
I skip the unappetising selection of olives, breadsticks and dips and go straight to mains. And by God, if their heads were any further up their own arses they’d be able to eat their tonsils.
All the bases are sourdough. I’ve had sourdough before and it’s dense as f**k, so it’ll be like trying to eat a paving slab. The toppings aren’t helping. One has ‘nduja’ on it, which I have to Google. Turns out it’s a soft, spreadable, spicy pork sausage, apparently. We had that when I was a kid. Came in a jar saying ‘Shippam’s Meat Paste’.
There’s a ‘garden pizza’ to pander to the veggie nutters. Who actually has courgettes, peppers and red onions in their garden? If it came from the back of my flats it’d be topped with empty beer cans, used johnnies and a broken shopping trolley.
And so it goes on. ‘Piquante’ peppers. Portobello mushrooms, like ordinary mushrooms are beneath them. Their pork meatballs are ‘proudly sourced from local organic farmers’. Like I give a shit. I don’t need to know a pig’s home address and dietary requirements to eat the f**ker.
I opt for the pepperoni special to play it safe. It’s ‘baked in a traditional wood-fired oven’. Obviously gas isn’t fancy enough. Wankers.
When it arrives the base is, predictably, hard as a brick, and the toppings so measly you’d think there was a war on, not that the Italians would be doing much. A smear of tomato sauce. Couple of blobs of mozzarella. A grand total of six pieces of pepperoni. It’s practically translucent.
I glumly finish it and the base is sitting so heavily in my gut I skip dessert. Don’t think I’ll be able to eat again for a week without giving myself a hernia on the bog.
My verdict? Well, at least they’re having a go, but is it Domino’s gold standard? Is it bollocks.
