Following an unfortunate accident on Saturday, I was incapacitated in the cooking department last night, so the boyfriend offered to order a pizza delivery. We are fortunate enough to have a Firezza pizza about 5-10minutes walk from our house, which is about as good as it gets in the delivery department; the pizza, not the distance. The fact that it is only a short walk to collect the pizza might also be seen as fortuitous, but we are lazy and pay extra for the privilege of being so. In fairness though, the delivery does arrive piping hot having spent barely 2 minutes in transit.
Firezza deal in pizza al metro, or pizza by the metre, a name which is almost literal but for the fact that each pizza is actually only half a metre (which for logistical reasons is quite understandable) and different toppings are ordered by the quarter metre.
My quick and dirty online research has established that this style of pizza was developed in the 1950s by Gigino Dell’Amura in his family bakery in Sorrento, now a restaurant and self-proclaimed 'University of Pizza'. One of the pages that tells the story of pizza al metro suggests that Dell'Amura's pizzas became longer and longer 'in order to satisfy... the appetite of each customer' and this is heralded 'a simple but genial idea'. I give the author of this page the benefit of the doubt here and assume that something has been lost in translation, that the sentence could benefit from the insertion of the word ‘individual’ or ‘differing’ between the words ‘the’ and ‘appetite’. Presumably the point being made is that this style of pizza is more efficient, because the bakery can produce several metre pizzas with various toppings and sell them in slices, which customers can then buy in varying numbers to satisfy their individual appetites. That is, as opposed to making an individual pizza for each patron in the standard 12 inch size, as is traditional.
I digress...
This is the pizza we ordered last night:
¼ Spinaci - Fresh baby spinach, feta cheese, black olives, slow roasted cherry tomatoes, oregano, extra virgin olive oil, tomato and mozzarella.
¼ Capricciosa - Prosciutto cotto ham, spicy pepperoni, fresh mushrooms, black olives, tomato and mozzarella.
Given the provision of an image of the pizza, I must now admit to a cardinal foodie sin, which is that I asked for the capricciosa minus the ham. This is justified only by the fact that the ham they use is nothing very special and there tends to be a lot of it, which equals less pepperoni and I am a big fan of pepperoni. Nonetheless, it is unforgivable and I bow my head in shame.
If you order Firezza online you get a free woodfired pizza bread with your order, one of a number of specials they offer for the web 2.0 savvy. The only negative comment I have on the subject is that a friend of mine who has eaten Firezza from 2 different outlets, including my local, says that the one near her is not as good, so quality may vary from store to store.
If you prefer dining out, there are a number of restaurants in London that also do pizza al metro. One of my favourites is Regina Margherita on Upper St in Islington. The prices per quarter meter are only a little dearer than Firezza, although if you are tempted by the entrees or pasta dishes, they and the wine list will take the bill up a bit.
And lastly, for those of you with curious minds, the accident involved a few glasses of wine, a very sharp knife and a rather large chunk of the tip of my left index finger getting mixed up with the parsley.