Franco Manca

The Berwick Street Franco Manca is actually in the basement — wine and beer are stored upstairs, take a good look if you want to order these downstairs.
The neapolitan pizza is made in a special brick oven using slow-​rising sourdough — what this means is its genuinely fresh and soft! Excellent value for money — great pizza for under a tenner — you will never want a Domino’s or even a pizza express again. Number 6 is highly recommended for chorizo lovers.

I just love this place, the pizza’s are delicious and cheap for London. Most are priced at £7 to £8’s, great side salads and love the fact that it’s sourdough. Great organic wines I try to go at least once or twice a month. Go early as it gets very busy.

This pizza place is in my top 2 for pizzas in London. The sourdough base is really special! I had the wild broccoli, mozzarella and Gloucester Old Spot sausage pizza with no tomato sauce and I highly recommend it =] They also do special starters with authentic fresh tasting ingredients. Very yummy! The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is that I can’t decide if I prefer it to Homeslice Pizza.

Not being a local London laydee I wasn’t aware of the small chain of Franco Manca pizza restaurants in London. Myself & my boyfriend were in Soho for a book signing (at the brilliant comic/​graphic novel/​book shop, Gosh!) and afterwards we were on the lookout for food, I had spotted this pizza place (with my pizza-​spotting-​eagle-​eye) as I had walked along Berwick Street earlier & the 2 words that made me go ‘Ooh…’ were ‘SOURDOUGH’ and ‘PIZZA’, that’s 2 words I dig heavily. It also seems London digs all things sourdough too as later on in my wee jaunt to London I also consumed copious amounts of sourdough bread/​toast and sourdough doughnuts (OMG! BEST DOUGHNUTS ALERT!) So it only felt appropriate that my 1^st meal in ‘that London’ was a pizza of the sourdough variety.
We had a bit of a wait for a table but all good things (hopefully) come to those who stand on some stairs in the cold for a wee while, as the saying goes. Once seated I noticed how deceptively big this place is. You wouldn’t think so looking at the entrance but once downstairs it’s a good size & they fit a lot of tables in. We were greeted & seated & handed the fairly simple menu. They’re similar to a restaurant in Glasgow called Paesano, which also has a simple menu of sourdough pizzas & I am a fan of, so I had high hopes for this place… I am very happy to say this place certainly did not disappoint. Wow. I ordered a No Logo Pale Ale (£3.35) and for my pizza ~ The Gloucester Old Spot (Home Cured) Ham, Mozzarella, Buffalo Ricotta & Wild Mushrooms with only a little amount of tomato (£6.85). Service was speedy and within about ¹⁰⁄₁₅ mins we were eating these magnificent bready beasts. The pizzas were absolutely DIVINE. If any pizza could be described as melt-​in-​the-​mouth then this was certainly one of them. The base was one of the nicest pizza bases I’ve tasted probably ever. It’s not as thin as some but it’s not a ‘deep pan’ either, it’s just right. The sourdough obviously makes the dough & base totally pillow-​like in lightness, yet with a nice slight chew also. I also didn’t have to fight it when cutting into it which sometimes happens with other pizzas. The toppings were all super delicious as well, with just the right amount of everything. I like that this pizza also had not much tomato (sugo) on it as sometimes I find most pizzas have too much for my taste & it can overpower the delicate cheese & other such flavours/​toppings.
Dessert wise I think they only have one option; the Tiramisu. It was a beautiful Tiramisu though. They also serve coffee and as well as beer wine and soft drinks. Our bill, for 2 pizzas, 2 drinks and a dessert came to under £25 and we were both stunned at the price for the quality of the food we had just devoured. Especially as we were in London! (nae offence; you just assume everything is going to be 5x more expensive down here than in Glasgow, but I was happy to say we were proved wrong) The staff here were all very friendly & super efficient also. All in all, this place ~ brilliant.
If you are in search of a pizza in London then please check this, or one of their other restaurants out, as you will not be disappointed. Next time I’m in London I’m gonna make sure I squeeze in a visit to this place again. Oh yes.