Happy Face, London 11-2018

New in the King's Cross block is Happy Face pizza. It's a venture from the Spiritland people around the corner with their insanely expensive sound system. Similarly Happy Face has a pretty good system itself with clear sounds from very funky looking speakers strategically around the venue.

During this 50% soft opening, it did seem they were struggling to keep up with the pizza pace. It took 45mins for our entree and pizzas to arrive, but the table next to us only waited about 10 and therefore we ate at the same time. Go figure.

In any case that's what a soft opening is about. They didn't have milkshakes or chinottos or another drink I asked for, so just water then.

They also ran out of calamari fritti and so we were relegated to zucchini friti £6. Having said that these thin zucchini fries were crisp and delicious and strongly salted so basically replaced normal fries (and our sodium levels). It's quite a small thing for that price (and the wait) and we were so hungry by then. The pizzas are surprisingly simple in their toppings. The dough is chewy with some burnt and very puffy crust parts. Pepperoni £9 and Parmagiana £10 were both alright but too sparse. Particularly the Pepperoni where there was much crust not covered by cheese, tomato or meat. It was a bit disappointing in that sense to be eating plain crust (and I really like a good salty chewy crust).

It was nice to try, but won't be replacing their down-the-road rival Franco Manca for me.