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| picture from metro.co.uk |
Pizza East
56 Shoreditch High St
London E1 6JJ
I’m a bit of Shoreditch girl. Not that I’ve ever lived there, because forking out £600 a month for a room only slightly wider than my bed and a bathroom straight across from a middle-aged man with binoculars isn’t my idea of good financing. But I do love the area and I find myself wandering past the City several times a week, stopping to try on a hat and a couple of pairs of shoes at the Spitafields market, drawing out the short walk up Brick Lane by entering all the vintage shops to sort through flapper dresses and retro sunglasses. I sit at a café with a hot chai tea and a suitable book (I find Jane Austen or anything in French to draw approving glances from passers-by, but I admit a more common choice for me is the month’s Elle) and check out the beautiful girls and boys who walk past with jeans so skinny they can be used as a method of hair removal.
I don’t find it a problem, in any case, to go to the corner of Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green Road for some pizza. The people I was going with, however, were a different story – one of them travelling from as far as the faraway land of Notting Hill – and they all arrived, with varying degrees of lateness, ready to complain.
Thankfully, when we entered, (at around 9pm on a Wednesday, with no reservation), the staff in charge of coats and seating, a girl who looked like she should be on the cover of the aforementioned Elle, was charming and a table for four was free. We followed her and took in our surroundings.
Pizza East is owned by Nick Jones, who also has Shoreditch House right next door (not to mention Soho House, Babington House and others). There is a definitely similar vibe here, brought on by the raw wood and metal decor, exposed concrete pillars, the large square bar in the middle of the room and the impossibly stylish clientele. The room was pretty busy but not full, certainly far from the over-spilling crowd of a week-end night. The sound from fellow diners’ conversation carries quite easily and the music adds to the general level of noise so that it was necessary to raise our voices slightly around the round table to hear each other. This was not my first time at Pizza East but it was the first time I was seated elsewhere than the counter at the bar. I find the latter a more entertaining and enjoyable spot, not least because on one occasion my chatter with the barman earned me a free (and delicious) Margarita.
A friendly waitress showed up as soon as we had all closed our menus and listened with good nature as we emerged as the most indecisive and picky of customers, trotting out allergies, swapping pizza toppings and changing our minds repeatedly. She wrote it all down and brought us a jug of tap water, stayed for a few minutes to chat, with a chirpy American accent, about the new tube stop opening soon right across the street (it will mean madness for the restaurant, she predicted).
We each had a pizza, which are small and sparse in ingredients, but pretty dang delicious. On mine, the mixture of smoked ham with the best ricotta I’ve ever had, some bitter leaves and a subtle pesto has me ooh-ing at every bite and I managed to negotiate a bite of the Salami pizza to my right, with a slight hint of heat from chilli, also a good choice. The base of the pizzas is light and crunchy with a tangy note (sourdough?) but slightly too done for my taste – I didn’t eat my leftover crusts, which never happens with soft doughy pizzas. The ingredients shine both individually and in their combinations, and we couldn’t resist ordering a selection platter of cheeses and hams to round off the first part of the meal.
For desert the four of us ordered different things and this time I was more forceful about having a taste of each, it’s for the review you understand. My donuts with a dark chocolate sauce were perfection, the banana cake (no longer on the menu) moist and its accompanying sauce rich and toffee-y while the salted caramel and chocolate tart tasted like a Twix only, you know, a lot better. But the real surprise came from the homemade mint sorbet, usually my least favourite flavour, which here reminded me of a perfectly sweetened mint tea. We all had a spoonful and in ecstasy, raised our eyes to the cool-looking exposed pipes on the ceiling.
We left with a £90 bill (none of us had alcohol) and full but not distended stomachs. The complaining stopped after the first mouthful and Shoreditch doesn’t seem so far anymore. Next time, I think I’ll try to step away from the donuts and have the mint sorbet myself. With some chocolate sauce on the side though, of course.
