Of Slice and Men

A takeaway pizza tour of Brighton


Until fairly recently, due to shameful laziness and a cynical assumption that the big name takeaway chains peddling their stodgy slabs of preservative-packed excuses for food had run anyone making honest, authentic, hand-delivered pies out of town, I’d been living in a horrific nightmare of belief that it just wasn’t possible to get a quality pizza wheeled to your door in Brighton. How very wrong I turned out to be...

Moving into a new neighbourhood about a year ago, I began to hear word of a local and independent delivery-only pizzeria that made food so good that people still talked about its wares weeks after eating there. The name of that takeaway was (and still is) LA CUCINA. Naturally, I got curious, and after a couple of weeks in my new surroundings, my expectations of takeaway pizza had shot through the roof. Having been mercifully lifted from my fug of delivery-based apathy, it seemed only natural to seek out what else was available in the locale to someone with a raging hunger for a superior slice.

Joined by Brighton’s own vegetarian pizza guru, Ash, I became determined to seek out the best Brighton & Hove had to offer. First, the ground rules:

1. Believing the old maxim ‘one can have too much of a good thing’ to be completely valid, we decided on a limit of one pizza per week.

2. Also adhering firmly the twin concepts of inconsistency and hypocrisy, we completely disregarded the first rule in deciding each to order our own all-time favourite topping from every joint along the way. FAVOURITES: Me - the classic Napoletana/Napoli (depending on who you ask) - anchovies, olives, capers. Ash: Funghi with extra onion.

3. In the unlikely event of suddenly discovering midway through the adventure that one or the other of us was lactose intolerant, the guy left standing would inform the fallen’s next of kin.

Souls rumbling and napkins tucked in, off we went.

First stop...

Oregano
19 Old Steine
Brighton BN1 1EL
T: (01273) 677 377
Menu: http://www.brightontasty.com/menus/oregano.pdf

The first thing that strikes you about this place, apart from the alarmingly H.U.G.E sizes available (their ‘Super’ weighs in at a monstrous 16”!!) is the extensive and - it has to be said - occasionally bizarre menu. Case in point: they have a pizza called ‘Deny Duck’ that boasts not only duck, but... wait for it... duck with brown sauce. Yes. I’m more intrigued by the name than the toppings, though... Had this duck simply been denied its right to exist in a normal habitat away from pizza and a condiment most commonly associated with bacon sandwiches? Was it a freak typo? Or, just maybe, was I paying way too much attention? Anyway, this was no time for being adventurous, let alone pedantic; we’d already made a pact to stick to our favourites and sure as hell weren’t going to break it on our first order (except that I kind of had to as they were sans capers - more on that in a bit). Onwards...

Reading the words ‘traditional wood fired oven’ was definitely enough to get us into something of a tizz. The call was made. The wait commenced. The food ARRIVED:





Just look at them. They clearly weren’t kidding about the traditional wood fired oven - a slightly charred crust is definitely a reassuring sign of a pizza full of delicious potential in my book. The base was floury and crisp with a hint of the wood fire we’d heard so much about, and was a bed for some damn fine tomato sauce – fresh tasting and tangy with a fragrant pinch of its creators' herby namesake. Juicy olives, satisfyingly salty anchovies but, as I mentioned earlier, sadly no capers; they didn’t have any available on the night but I can’t say that ruined the experience. The cheese was a good, stringy mozzarella coating the pizza so liberally that it almost bullied the other ingredients into submission, but they were all so tasty that they just about held their own.





Oregano: with your pizza bursting with flavoursome toppings, your square slicing and your mouth-wateringly charred bases, I will be calling on you again.

The verdict from Ash:




Now, on to the the reason we're here...

La Cucina
4a Montpelier Place
Brighton BN1 3BF
T: (01273) 202 206
Menu: http://www.lacucinabrighton.co.uk/pizza.htm





Although I’d ordered from this place before, this was the first time I’d tried their Napoletana, and it DEFINITELY didn’t disappoint; the anchovies seemed of much better quality than those you’d usually expect from a takeaway pizza – they actually tasted like they came from the SEA and not from a tin, which is something of a rarity in my experience. If it weren’t for the fact they’d just spent a while getting cosy in a scorching oven amongst a plain of molten cheese, I would’ve been convinced they were still swimming. Exceptionally well-seasoned tomato sauce was perfectly balanced with tart capers, smoky black olives and some top drawer mozzarella. A classic thin base with a “biscuitty” crust ("biscuitty" © Ash 2010) held everything together nicely.



A special mention here has to go to La Cucina’s famous purple coleslaw – I can’t order anything from here without a helping of this king of the sides. Creamy and naturally sweet but not too heavy, it’s loaded with fresh, crunchy veg and seriously addictive - you’ll praise yourself for parking a mountain of it next to your favourite slice. Another nice touch is that they give you a little pot of fresh rocket to do with as you please. Not being particularly innovative types, we opted to scatter it over our dinner for a peppery garnish, but I’m sure the more creative among you could really break some new ground with this.



The verdict from Ash:




Next up...

Pizzaface
35 Saint Georges Road
Kemptown BN2 1ED
T: (01273) 699 082
Menu: http://www.pizzafacepizza.co.uk/

Apparently the newest kid on the block, Pizzaface sprung up less than a year ago and has been making culinary ripples in Kemptown and beyond ever since. This is definitely the place for you if you have any special dietary requirements – gluten-free, yeast-free and wheat-free bases and even 100% vegan pizzas are all on the menu here, which means pretty much anyone can join the party without fear of allergic, gastric or moral repercussions.

(Unless you don’t like pizza. Then you can take your sparkly conical hat off and sit in the corner. In the dark. Go on.)



Lifting the lid on our bounty, the first word that sprang to mind was ‘minimal’. Not in an Ikea/Apple/turtle neck kind of a way, you understand - and not that good pizza should ever be about size - but we’d been conditioned by our experience so far to expect something more... substantial-looking. Then I cast my mind back to my sole trip to Italy and thought ‘hey, this is just how pizza looked in ROME’. And then I knew everything was going to be OK.





As you can see from the photo above, Ash broke rule no. 2 in deviating from his FAVOURITE and getting a 'Vegetarian' instead, the heathen. I must admit I was tempted to do the same, though - other options on their menu include marinated asapragus, oyster mushrooms and lamb prosciutto, which definitely sound worth a punt. Still, my loyalty to DINNERGEDDON won out and I determinedly stuck to my own dumb rules.

Whereas other sauces we’d tried so far featured oregano fairly prominently, our Pizzaface pies stood out in offering up a nice, clean basil taste; sweet and fragrant, this was where most of the flavour came from. The toppings, although not the most plentiful, were happy to let the basic elements do the talking: the real star here was the floury disc on which it all sat. Simultaneously fresh, springy and crispy, I would have happily discarded the toppings, rolled several of these up into a colossal dough cigar and spent an entire evening gnawing said creation like a drowsy cow mindlessly chewing through several lifetimes of exceptionally tasty base-cud.



The verdict from Ash:




And, finally...

Pronto in Tavola
43 Waterloo Street
Hove BN3 1AY
T: (01273) 771 881
Menu: http://prontointavola.gofreeserve.com/

Oh boyee is this good pizza. The keyword here is undoubtedly ‘FRESH’. Fresh in a way you haven’t known since a juvenile Will Smith and his mate Jeff entertained your adolescence goofing around in Bel Air.





Something to note is that their pies come unsliced. At first, we whined like convenience-spoiled kids at the thought of having to lift a knife and fork, but then realised that ACTUALLY this was much more like how your food would ACTUALLY be served in an ACTUAL Italian restaurant, so we shut the hell up and dug in.



Good, fragrant capers, GOOOOD anchovies and probably the best olives I’ve ever eaten on a pizza – stone in and nicely bitter, they added an extra dimension to the proceedings in a way olives that aren’t usually expected to do. Go olives, you little winners.



If you like pizza, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re a fan of cheese too, but something I think a lot of pizza-pushers often do unnecessarily is pile the stuff on. Certainly not the case with Pronto in Tavola; a light scattering of mozzarella sat evenly among the toppings and acted more as a complimentary texture than a feature, ensuring every bite was as good as the last.

The verdict from Ash:



NO!!! I mean: