L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele: Not a revelation, but probably the best pizza in London

Pizza is was it is, says David Ellis, but Michele's is probably as good as it gets
Simple but effective: L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele only offer two types of pizza
David Ellis @dvh_ellis22 August 2018

Pizza is like socks at Christmas. I don’t mean the taste – though, actually, thinking about it, sometimes the taste – I just mean: socks are ok. I'd sooner have socks than nothing. Sometimes when someone asks me what I'd like, and I can’t think of anything, I’ll say ‘socks’.

This is not how everyone feels about pizza. I’m reminded of this whenever I shrug about it. Damn, people love pizza. Some people have point blank told me my indifference towards it is enough to revoke my membership to the human race. That’s weird, but then, that’s food: bacon fetishes are a Louis Theroux waiting to happen.

Which is to say, hearing “the world’s best pizza” was coming to London wasn’t huge news for me. The famed L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele from Naples was opening up – marvellous, but, er, so what? Oh, it was in famously terrible film Eat, Pray, Love? Why didn’t you say so! Then I mentioned it to my girlfriend, who is also from Naples, and that was it, an Uber was summoned. I was game enough – secretly, I think, hoping to be converted.

This garlic-smelling pizzeria is in Stoke Newington, which isn’t a problem unless you live literally anywhere else. It’s a cheery, two-storey place, right on the street. The queues, and there are queues, must annoy the neighbours.

Once inside, downstairs is small, cosy, with exposed brickwork and beer crates as decoration. The room is probably heated by the 2,300kg pizza oven in the open kitchen, which breaths at something like 500°C. As you eat, there’s the pat, pat, smack of dough hitting the workshop. Every few seconds one seems to be done, the expert Neapolitan chefs sending little mushroom clouds of flour into the air. Upstairs is bigger and brighter, white washed, and both rooms have simple blue chairs and marble-topped tables. There is an elegance to all the simplicity: it is very basic, but comfortable.

That’s also true of the food. It is not a complicated menu: they serve two types of pizza, beer and wine. There’s a dessert on the board sometimes. That’s it. You’ve a choice, or either margherita (tomato, mozzarella, a touch of basil) or marinara (tomato, oregano, olive oil, garlic). There’s no gluten-free or wheat-free options, and the thin bases are plain old dough: no spelt or rye or Special K bases here. Everything – everything – is Italian; I wouldn’t be surprised if the tap water were hooked up to a spring in Campania.

The pizzas, after their minute and a half in the oven, come splattered with char marks. They are as thin as your school newsletter – though not, we’re told, as thin as the original. The base crunches a little, but it’s not this you notice. No, with both pizzas, it’s the whacking great vivid tomato bursting through. It’s tomato like you have abroad, that which makes you curse the plastic flavoured stuff in our supermarkets. It is rich, a little smokey, bright and clear cut. No surprise it stands out most on the marinara, with no cheese to temper it. Interestingly, as its so simple, all the flavours are more distinct: the oregano snaps with flavour, coming through as a distinct note, rather than as an extra. The margherita is perhaps less distinctive, but the cheese excellent. Both are light, neither are oily. Unlike plenty of pizzas, you won’t feel greasy and piggish after demolishing one. Are they a relevation? Well: no. Mountains did not move. Are they very, very, very good? Yes. Absolutely. Delicious.

Can I wax lyrical about the pizza? Was I ‘having a relationship’ with it? No. It’s pizza. Good pizza (cashmere socks). The best pizza in London? Possibly. It’s better than Franco Manca down the road, and Franco Manca is pretty good. It’s not pizza for those who like indulging with every kind of flavour, who want to pile up with chicken and pineapple and spicy beef and whatever else. In truth, it’s more of an experience, a taste of the old school: here is a slice of what the purists love.

The best pizza in London

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L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele: The lowdown

Final flavour: Pizza, as traditional as they come

At what cost? Marinara: £6.90 for a regular and £7.90 for a large. Margherita: £7.90 for a regular and £9.00 with double mozzarella. Beer from £2.50 for a half, wine from £4.35 a glass.

Find it: 125 Stoke Newington Church St, Stoke Newington, N16 0UH, facebook.com

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