Franco Manca - Pizza How it Should Be

Brixton Market, Unit 4, Market Row, London, SW9 8LD www.francomanca.co.uk/pages/index.html

Technically this restaurant is a chain as they now have 4 locations: Chiswick, Brixton, Northcote Road and the Westfield at Stratford – but I am making an exception to my chain-restaurant-hating rampage because the people at Franco Manca are really special.

They follow an artisan way of life – for those that don’t know, artisan basically means ‘hand crafted’ and implies that a lot of time and preparation has gone into the making of food. The pizza dough is left for a minimum of 20 hours so that it can rise properly. It is then cooked in a special wood-burning brick oven known as a ‘tufae’, brought over from Naples. This gives the finishing touch to the 600 year old recipe. Cooking in this way gives the dough a special quality – thin and crispy in the middle but with a delicious doughy crust.

Many of the pizza toppings are also farmed sustainably by artisans. The ham comes from Gloucester Old Spot Pigs and is supplied through David Tomlin, the founder of the Rare Breed Survival Trust. Ricotta and Mozzarella come from buffalo and cow herds at Alham Wood Organics in Somerset. The restaurant even purchased a farm in Spain where it grows its own olives and the sweet tomatoes are hand-picked in Salerno (western Italy) during July and August. So you can see that a lot of thought and effort has gone into the creation of each individual pizza making it an artisanal masterpiece.

Everyone in the group enjoyed their pizza and there were no complaints what so ever. The organic, non-sulphite wine is only a mere £3.50 a glass so it’s perfect for students and pizzas cost around £7. I would highly recommend Franco Manca; it beats Pizza Express and Zizis any day.  The only downside is it can be a bit breezy as you might have to sit outside because it’s in Brixton open air market. But if you wrap up warmly, it won’t be a problem. I have also heard that queues get really long on a Saturday when the food market is fully functioning, but on a Friday evening, we only waited for 15 minutes. Belissimo!

Scores:

Food: 8/10

Ambience: 6/10, its probably better if you sit inside.

Value for money: 9/10

Would I go again: Yes.