Giusto
43 Blandford Street
London, W1U 7HF
Tel: 020 7486 7340
Today's guest blog comes from Bombay Beauty. Remember to come back on Tuesday, May 6th to vote for your favorite guest blogger!
Date of last visit: 17 April 2008
The Damage: £18, including a glass of wine.
The Victim: Me, myself, and my lonesome.
The Background: My Italian friend, Marco, had been going on (and on) about how Giusto served really good Italian food, and you know how Italians get when they talk about their food: (they think) they know it all. But my friend Marco is a good type, so I thought I would give it a try.
The Entrance: I've walked by, and past, this place often because it looks deserted or closed. But the trick is that the restaurant is downstairs while upstairs is just a small bar area that is used at lunch for coffee and takeaway but is empty at night. Downstairs I find a largish dining room with people in it – things are looking up. While it's neither cozy nor sleek, there are people here and a wood-fired oven, and that's all right.
The Oven: True Italian pizza is baked in a wood-fired oven. Don't be fooled by substitutes. I've even been to places where they pile logs everywhere to make it look authentic, but when you ask you discover they have an electric oven. This is the real deal – wood!
The Main: I am really in the mood for pizza so I set pretense aside and dive into it. I ask for the Basilico, which is made with plum tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella (again, accept no substitutes, outside Southern Italy, unless they say it's buffalo mozzarella assume it's not), fresh basil, and a bit of tomato sauce. It looks something like this:
It takes exactly 10 minutes for my pizza to arrive. I time them, naturally. In a pizzeria quick service is good. It means that the pizza's crust is thin and that the oven is hot. My first bite is good – a crisp crust and a good tomato sauce. My second bite is also good, but puzzling: the cheese is delicious, true buffalo mozzarella, but it's cold. I examine the pie more carefully and notice that all the toppings have been placed on the pizza after most of the baking was done – the cheese isn't melted, the plum tomatoes (which are delicious by the way) are still fresh rather than oven roasted, and the basil (fragrant, mmm….) is fresh as the day it was born.
I'm puzzling this through when I notice that my pizza has disappeared – I've eaten it all. Despite what my mind tells me, my palette says it's good.
The bottom line is mixed. Putting the ingredients on after baking just isn't right (and why? did I seem too lonely to wait an extra 2 minutes?), but at the same time the crust and ingredients are great.
The Service: Friendly and efficient.
The Loos: No problems here.
The Verdict: While it may not be grandma's pizza (if your grandmother is Neapolitan), it is all said and done a very fine pizza. I'll be back for more. Also noteworthy – they offer mini-pizzas and panini for lunch. Hot from the oven at £4 each, this seems like a good lunch or shopping-break option if you're in Marylebone.
Thanks to Bombay Beauty for submitting a guest post while I'm taking some time off. Remember to come back on Tuesday, May 6th to vote for your favorite guest blogger!
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