Sometimes you crave a big pizza all to yourself. The last time for me was back in 2013 when I got a 20" (half bone marrow/spring onion/watercress and half pork belly/chimichurri/smoked onions) all to myself at Homeslice at Seven Dials near Covent Garden or the Georgian khachapuri (cheese, cheese, cheese) in St. Petersburg a few months later. On those occasions despite the more unusual ingredients and my greed, I could only finish half each.
Tonight was another of those pizza moments and Arte seemed a good choice. I'd read about it and the menu seemed conventional and nice, albeit a little expensive. Once I went inside the small home business I saw how large a family pizza is and the prices made sense. The small and medium are significantly smaller so don't really seem good value (unless you can't bear the thought of eating day old pizza - shame on you).
- Calzone Traditionale - a huge calzone filling a family sized box with thin pieces of ham (not smoked or cured), tomato, an occasional basil leaf and a load of molten mozzarella;
- Prawn Pizza #1 - 6 high quality prawns (cut in half to form 12) on a thin pizza base topped with cheese and a nice tomato base. Garlic was a listed ingredient but although I chewed through a few granules I couldn't detect any of the flavour;
- Garlic Pizza - very thin crispy like flatbread rather than pizza base with a few chunks of garlic. Prefer much more garlic, some butter and a little burning. Disappointed overall.
The pizzas were decent quality but I did feel slightly unsatisfied (not dissatisfied) at the end. Given the other local options are Domino's and Crust (which I don't mind actually), this is a clear step up above in quality.
My favourite pizzas of all time (other than the simple fresh passata and buffalo mozzarella in Rome) have had anchovies or capers or speck or proscuitto. So I think I probably just like much heavier seasoning/salt with my pizzas. I still have half a calzone, 3/4 family prawn pizza and half a small garlic pizza left. I'll easily get through it and it should satisfy my pizza needs until I decide to recreate Franco Manca's recipe for the 2nd time.
