Our year: 25 pictures and 1 video
Where'd the year go 2016 has been quite a year but we’re not talking politics or those who’ve said their goodbyes. A best nine won’t do ours justice so here’s a top 25 of what’s happened. We started the year focused on mobile events. February Meg's passport arrives...
Window notice
Hello, I suppose we should introduce ourselves, we’re Bertha’s Pizza, Graham, Kate & Meg, do say hi if you see us about. I guess you’re wondering what’s happening to this beautiful building - we’re proud to say it’s becoming our home. Our journey started 6 years...
Time: the secret ingredient
Text as published in Hiut Denim's yearbook number three. Illustration by Bjorn Lie “There’s a shop around the corner, go buy some flour, knock up another batch, you’ll clean up.”It was 1pm and we’d just sold out. The weather forecast took a u-turn for the better,...
Wood, gas and thermal mass
Q&A with with Daniel Young of Young & Foodish, Daniel asks the questions and I get carried away with the answers. How did Bertha’s get started? Bertha’s what we christened our first oven, a Sheffield Steel, brick lined Garden Oven where we began the...
Representing those who’ve come before
Things are getting serious ...we’re having t-shirts made.We’ve resisted thus far, the aprons Kate crafted have sufficed as uniform, but we’re stepping up a level in 2016. This is the year our crazy dream of a neighbourhood pizzeria becomes a reality. New restaurant,...
Lessons from banker to baker
Previously shackled to a keyboard. We’ve written about our past before, in fact it’s on the front page of our website - we were looking for a change of direction, a route out of London, a vocation not a chore. We sat there sharing the food we’d cooked with friends...
Emerging from wedding and festival land
Time from Stick in Mind. Meet Harris, keeper of the dough secrets That's Harris above. I'm sat in a Shoreditch coffee shop writing this newsletter, a flat white sipping cliché.The caffeine’s required though, there’s a lot to catch up on. Our last newsletter came out...
Sandbags
I have no regrets in life. That’s a lie, I bloody hate these sandbags. At a generous estimate they’re 30% reconstituted with Gaffa tape, that’s on the rise, I’ve owned colanders with fewer holes. We bought these before our first mobile event, one of the many last...
Time for flavour
More of a vlog than a blog. Time - 90s of yours and a snapshot of how we spend ours. Water, flour, salt, our secret ingredient and why it matters. From the creative StickInMind goblins time from Stick in Mind on Vimeo.
Q&A with With Mustard (lot of withs there)
We had a lovely chat with Bristol based food blogger With Mustard, she asked the questions, we did our best to answer them, for plenty more on cooking and eating in Bristol and beyond we'd wholeheartedly recommend her site. Bertha's Pizza -Roving, Bristol Pizza, in...
Paper Bags
We use more flour than most households. Should we launch a restaurant it won’t have happened overnight. We’ll have kneaded several tonnes of dough before bricks and mortar was ever a possibility. Rather than put the bags out with the recycling we started collecting a...
Flour & Water
We keep two sourdough starters. Extravagant I know. This is mainly down to nostalgia but there’s the odd occasion where there are benefits of maintaining two at different hydrations or water contents. Sanj is getting on a bit now, born in my old flat, named after a...
Russian Doll
On the surface there’s not much to this newsletter, a few paragraphs which don’t really do justice to the last few months. Give the links a click though. Make yourself a cup of tea and peel back the layers on what we’ve been up to. Restaurant news I’ve now lost track...
Humble pie – West Coast U.S.A. Pizza Road Trip
We've been to Naples. Love the place. The chaos is part of the charm and they know a thing or two about pizza. However we've always taken more of a lead from what's going on the other side of the Atlantic. We're not Italian and don't pretend to be, so freed by the...
Top That: Bacon and Sprouts (à la Motorino)
Sprouts get a lot of bad press and this pizza is a nightmare to sell. But I refuse to back down as it's one of my all time favourites and I've yet to meet anyone who hasn't enjoyed it having given it a try. There's something about the way the sprout leaves char at the...
Top That: Roast Chestnut and Rosemary
"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." Probably the last thing you want to hear in January but trust me it's preferable to my tax return so let's catch up on a couple of toppings which went down well last month. Ingredients Sourdough base Mozzarella Roasted...
Comfort Zones
If you already subscribe to our newsletter you'll know all this, if you'd like to subscribe, click here. It’s over a year since I travelled 5000 miles to work at Pizzicletta, where did that go? Back then I still had the day job and was about to take a leap out of my...
Charity shop trousers
“Just to confirm…” Never the best start to an email. It was 12:30 and we were mid way through a busy lunch service in the middle of summer. A beautiful day to be stood anywhere but the mouth of a 500º oven. I was wearing shorts. “… no shorts will be permitted onsite”...
The Tomato Stall Visit – Isle of Wight
Pizza's simple. Good ingredients on good bread. We're proud to source our tomatoes from the lovely people at The Tomato Stall on the Isle of Wight. Ripened on the vine, picked at their peak, with varieties selected for flavour not yield - what's not to love.Here's a...
DO(UG)H!
Everyone loves the summer At least that's what I used to think but it turns out I was wrong. Our dough hates it. With ‘cold’ tap water above 22ºC and night temperatures remaining in the 20s there's been nowhere to hide. We’ve always walked the tightrope of...