| Ambiance: |  (3 / 5) |
| Service: | (2 / 5) |
| Value for money: | (3 / 5) |
| Pizza: | (3.5 / 5) |
I was intending to meet Andrew for lunch at the Gourmet Pizza Company on the Southbank, however, made the mistake of getting off the tube early in favour of some ‘location research’ and stumbled across Fratelli La Bufala just down the road from Charing Cross station. Maybe it was the bright red, or perhaps the bull logo but something massively drew me in, and when I saw the wood fired oven and ‘trained pizzaoili’ written on the door, it was a no brainer – the Gourmet Pizza Company would have to wait.
The inside (annoyingly) is very similar to how I’d like my pizzeria to look like. It had a choice of seating, both upstairs and downstairs and stools by the window to people watch on. It also offered everyone in the restaurant, besides those sitting downstairs, the opportunity to see the wood fired oven. But being my favourite place to sit, we chose the window. I can imagine Villiers St. getting very busy at peak hours, but at 12.30pm on a Wednesday lunchtime, it was quite calming to watch a casual stream of people wander past.
Anyway, onto the important stuff: the food! Obviously I needed to try the pizza but which of the 20 toppings to choose from? Andrew originally wanted the margherita. In hindsight, (perhaps I should take this into future research) the margherita is probably the best option as it offers you the best view of what the dough tastes like. But in my over-indulgent mind, I’d always opt for the most exciting topping so we went for the Casertana – mozarella, Neopolitan friarielli brocolli and pork sausages. We weren’t actually overly taken by the menu as there weren’t that many things we fancied, so we settled on just one pizza and a bufala antipasti to share.
The food came together, I’d hoped we’d get the antipasti first but I allowed my mindset to be changed and we started with the pizza. Despite being on a white Bianca base (an oversight of mine, I should learn to study the menu for longer), it looked delicious. I’ve never seen Neopolitan brocolli before but it looked and tasted a lot like seaweed, having that same salty wetness. I always worry about ordering sausage on pizzas as its rare that the meat quality is very good, but Fratelli didn’t disappoint. Although slightly strange at first, the combination of the friarelli brocolli and Italian sausage turned out to be pretty moreish – but that could also have been helped by the saltiness. Now, onto the base – it’d been cooked by a trained Neopolitan pizzaoili, and in a wood fired oven so I was expecting brilliance. The verdict? Indifferent. Andrew commented that it didn’t really taste of much, so we left the crusts and I used them to dig into the antipasti with. I stole a couple of his too. Oh, and I did my usual and asked for some balsamic, a tell-tale sign that the dough was lacking in something. So, slightly disappointing but I enjoyed everything else – it had my favourite texture – slightly bread-like, soft and chewy and parts of the crust were slightly charred and the toppings were delicious. I could even forget about the ragu in this instance!
The antipasti was nice enough, although the fresh bufala mozerella let it down slightly. It was claimed that it had been flown in from Italy that morning but it didn’t have that same soft, stringiness and wet taste of a proper buffalo mozarella. The smoked mozarella was pretty delicious though, and I can’t complain about the range of meats they gave us, but for £15 you’d expect a decent spread.
All in all, I really enjoyed our meal at Fratelli. I even asked the pizzaoli for tips on how to stretch dough (to try and make my DIY pizza at home a little more successful) and despite having a few language issues, he was very helpful so I left with a smile on my face. Oh, and a free slice of margherita pizza as they were giving away freebees on the street afterwards. You can never turn down a freebee! And, it turns out I got my margherita pizza after all!
Recommendation:
After researching Fratelli La Bufala, I’ve found that they have quite a few locations so if you’re ever in one of their areas, I’d definitely give it a go. I’d definitely order a pizza, and try out some of the smaller tit bits from the 11.30 – 5.30 menu (provided you go during that time!)
Extra Information
Address: Villiers Street, Charing Cross, London WC2N 6ND
Phone: 020 7930 0311
Website: http://www.fratellilabufala.eu/
NTK: If you’re going between 11.30 and 5.30, make sure you look at the smaller menu – you’ll find the smaller bites there!
