Between ‘lousy Wednesday’ and ‘waiting Friday’ is ‘sweet Thursday’, so said John Steinbeck in his book of the same name. Hopefully, this new De Beauvoir pizzeria, sandwiched between a caff and a betting shop, didn’t choose its name as a comment on the neighbours.
With a wine shop at the front and a pizzeria at the back, a lot of thought has gone into the retro-meets-modern design of the place. The diner-style red and yellow tables are topped with tomato tins containing cutlery, and cola bottles full of chilli oil, while staff mill around in ‘pizza’ and ‘wine’ emblazoned T-shirts.
Shaped, topped and baked in the open kitchen at the back of the restaurant, the puffy-crusted and thin-based pizzas range from classic marinara and margherita to the less expected cauliflower, gorgonzola and walnut. With a more generous application of the nuts and cheese, the latter could have been great, while the ratios of the slow-roasted pumpkin, pepper and speck ham version were also out of balance.
The chef here gets top marks for innovation – and not the wrong kind, his combos are well thought out – but a few tweaks would move the food at this attractive pizzeria from merely satisfactory to very appealing.