Time is the secret ingredient

About

The spark for Bertha’s started in our London back garden with a Sheffield steel wood-fired oven we called Bertha. We were looking for a change of direction and a route out of London. A vocation not a chore. As we sat there sharing the food we’d cooked with friends the answer stared back at us – pizza. We then travelled the world, learned from some of the best in the US and put our waistbands on the line to sample all – and I mean all – that Naples had to offer. Our iconic yellow Land Rover with wood-fired oven shoehorned in the back toured the Bristol markets as Bertha’s made its home here back in 2014. We finally opened the big yellow doors at Wapping Wharf in Summer 2016.

At the heart of what we do is the guiding belief that delicious pizza is simple – great ingredients on great bread.

It’s accessible; the best pizza in the world is affordable to the masses. We love that. It’s a showcase for ingredients. This isn’t about buzzwords or trends. It matters. Provenance matters. Quality matters. Our sanity matters. And the best way to keep the fire in our bellies and passion for our work is to continue to team up with the best local producers and change our menu with the seasons.

We could make our lives easier, but we believe it’s more important to take time and do it properly. Our pizzas are born from our sourdough starter or mother. It’s a symbiotic mix of wild yeast, bacteria (think good bacteria) and enzymes. We prove our dough for at least 30 hours but typically more, this long ferment gives the natural enzymes time to do their work. The gluten chains are broken down further and you’re left with something which is both delicious and easy to digest. If you’re going to leave your crusts please do so discreetly, we don’t want to witness them being thrown away.

Interested in finding out more, head over to our Blog.