London – Eating & Drinking – Restaurants – Italian & Pizza
Franco Manca gets my seal of pizzapproval!
I’m upping sticks and leaving my home of 7 years in Shepherd’s Bush for the far more chic, distinctly less scary, and most definitely more beautiful Chiswick. And I simply can’t want to get stuck-in to the many delights Chiswick has to offer for the foodie; the supper clubs, the posh local food markets, and not least the great looking restaurants.
Franco Manca was recommended to me by the owner of a lovely little coffee house place in Cambridge called Massaro’s (completely unrelated); they are really serious about the quality of the meats and breads they serve, and they said I would love Franco Manca. In fact they were visiting London a week previously, and detoured all the way to Chiswick just to eat here.
They also told me the story of how it got its name. The original restaurant in Brixton was opened on the site of a little Italian place called Franco’s. One day Franco went missing and nobody knew where he had gone.
After a while, the new owners took over the place, but weren’t sure what to call their restaurant. So after a bit of thought they simply called it Franco Manca, Italian for “Franco’s Missing”.
Franco Manca is a pizza restaurant which serves really well-priced tasty Naples-style pizza, with an emphasis on good quality ingredients.
We visited for the first time of many on Saturday night, and found the pizza to be brilliant. The restaurant was very busy with queues out of the door at around 7.30pm Saturday night, and I can see why. Although there was a queue, the front-of-house chap knew exactly what he was doing and didn’t leave anyone hanging, instead coming coming back to check numbers and tables every few minutes.
The crowd is quite young and unfortunately a little noisy at this time; maybe I’m getting old but the group next to us was so unbearably loud we had to move. One Glaswegian woman had the most unbelievably shrill voice. What is it with the unruly Brits?!
Anyway. Are you a fellow Chiswickian? Or are you seeking out London’s best pizza joints?
The restaurant was extremely busy when we went, and they did mess up our order a little. Luckily we were quite excited about the pizza and overlooked the mistake, especially as an apology was forthcoming immediately.
Aside from this I found the service to be swift and no-messing.
Superb pizza, thin with toasty flavoursome crusts. If you are looking for a quiet Saturday evening then perhaps give it a miss, otherwise if you are no stranger to a youngish loudish crowd and you love good pizza, Franco Manca is a must-visit.
Check out my review of Franco Manca – I am hazymat – on Qype
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