Heavenly hedgerows indeed
Moving house is stressful, moving a house come pizzeria more so. But what better antidote than a stroll in the countryside, particularly if it’s brought to life by a true naturalist (I’m hoping that’s an expert in fauna and flora rather than someone with a liberal...
The smoke’s rising
500 pizzas in and we’re starting to find our rhythm In the words of McDonalds The learning curve’s been steep, steep and damp, so much for the start of the British summer, but we’re lovin’ it. We’ve carried each other through the 3am starts, the repeated...
We’ve started smoking
Bertha’s been feeling a little left out since the Berthamobile came on the scene, so to make up for the lack of action we thought we’d experiment with some hot smoking. We had an event down in Dorset over the weekend and to link in with the local seafood festival we...
Lighting a fire / Starting a business
Friday morning was cold. Cold and damp. We’d not lit the fire in weeks and she was sulking. The rain got heavier as I carried the logs over to the Landy and my t-shirt clung to my back - even the northerner in me was starting to concede this was a poor choice of...
The fire’s lit
It’s quite likely a dog’s peed here Residential North London isn’t the easiest area to cure an oven. I’m sat writing this while tending to the fire. And what a fire. The Dragon Oven team have done us proud. Setting that first match to the inside of my first...
Meat Maestros
One of the best things about starting a pizza business has to be meeting new suppliers. And as suppliers go Cobble Lane Cured are pretty special. They’re Mat, Matt and Adam and have been going under the name of Cobble Lane for almost a year now - it’s their birthday...
It feels like 2014 is going to be a big year
With almost two months down we’re long overdue an update. If you’re already on our mailing list you’ll have heard most of this via our first newsletter a couple of weeks back and if you’ve not signed up then here’s the link. So why the update. Why now? Well things are...
Making Mozz
What’s Rhianna’s favourite cheese? Mozzarella-ella-ella. Apologies. Even as cheese jokes go that’s a shocker. I’ve been wanting to make mozzarella for some time and inspired by the gents at Pizzicletta who are chuffed with the results of their own cheese making, I...
Naples Pizza Tour
A weekend's worth of pizza gluttony distilled into just over three minutes: Naples Pizza Tour from BerthasPizza on Vimeo. Restaurants (in order of appearance): Trianon Di Matteo Il Pizzaiolo del Presidente Di Matteo (again) Locanda ‘Ntretella Starita Da Michele...
5 Reasons to visit Bravi Ragazzi
1) One of the best margheritas I’ve had anywhere let alone in London 2) Textbook charing 3) Cloud-like cornicione 4) Proper Pastiera - Neapolitan cheese cake made with ricotta, wheat and a hint of citrus. No photo, we demolished it before I...
PG tips
After Flagstaff I headed to New York which in my humble opinion has the strongest claim to the best pizza city on earth. The tea however is rubbish. You only make the mistake of ordering a tea in a coffee shop once I’m guessing they don’t have PG tips over there, but...
Rocket not Arugula
24 hours travelling, Government shutdown, elocution lessons and silly amounts of pizza. Flagstaff is a long way from the UK, I appreciate that now, it’s also much higher and hence colder than I’d envisaged, so much for shorts and t-shirt desert weather. Yet it’s a...
Baby Steps
This weekend I’ll travel 5000 miles for pizza. That’s got to be close to some kind of record, it’s five times further than the Proclaimers were prepared to go. I’ll be going to spend some time at Pizzicletta. There are arguably better pizzerias around, and definitely...
Top That: Tomato Masala
Pizza number two was a combination I've wanted to try for a while and relied on a homemade masala paste which I currently can't get enough of. We use a Simon Hopkinson recipe which has been the basis of some of our more successful curries - make in bulk and keep in...
Top That: Charred Leeks with Capers and Brown Butter
It'd been a while since we'd fired up Bertha, turns out getting married takes up quite a bit of your time. A sunny Bank Holiday Monday formed the perfect excuse though and a great opportunity to try some new toppings. First up a take on a restaurant dish I'd seen on...
Top That: Isle of Wight Ninja
A second topping post following on from last weekend's firing, this one slightly more traditional, a margherita with spicy nduja sausage or as I prefer to call it, the Isle of Wight Ninja. I picked up some stunning Isle of Wight tomatoes from the market, crushed over...
Top That: Stilton Cheeseboard
I've long been a fan of the Serious Eats pizza blog, Slice and in particular their Top This feature which in their own words "show[s] you how to replicate unusually topped restaurant pies at home". Now I'm a pie fan but a pie to me is prefaced by the word "pork" and...
Return of the Jedi
Well, not quite, more Return to the Pizza Jedis, but Ealing certainly felt like a galaxy far, far away from North London. It'd been ages since we'd been to Santa Maria, too long, but Ealing is a bit of a mission. It always took something special for me to make the...
Homeslice Review
There’s something deeply satisfying about ordering the whole menu. No faff, no compromise. Simple. We’ll just have it all. I've only managed this on a couple of occasions, normally it’s practically, financially and gastric…ly unfeasible. It’s also rare, even for a...
Life of a pizza
Feels like we've had several seasons worth of weather condensed into the last couple of weeks. Last time I wrote I was making pizzas in the snow wearing all the layers I own and yesterday was well and truly shorts and t-shirt weather - has spring finally sprung? We...