Homeslice originally started out selling pizzas from a homebuilt wood fired oven in the courtyard of London Fields Brewery. After two very popular years it’s finally found itself a bricks and mortar home at Neal’s Yard in Covent Garden.
They don’t take reservations so the six of us had a lengthy hour long wait for a table – we could at least wander off and get a drink which is always a plus.
The inside was really buzzy; filled with noisy chatter and merriment which was helped by the long shared bench tables. This did however make things awfully cramped; we had very little room at all.
The wine situation was an interesting one; they bring it over in a magnum bottle, you then help yourselves and at the end of your meal they measure the bottle to see how much you’ve drunk and charge you accordingly. Never seen that before. But be warned, you end up drinking far more than you normally would!
Our waiter informed us the pizzas (all at £20 for twenty inch or £4 a slice on selected pizzas) were big enough to share between two and he wasn’t wrong; they were ruddy massive. Served on giant wooden boards with (annoyingly blunt) pizza wheels and paper plates, it was a messy old affair. The two vegetarians at the table went for the mushroom, ricotta and pumpkin seed pizza. It was a brilliant blend of textures and flavours; the tangy ricotta worked wonderfully with the mushrooms.
Me and my gentleman companion opted for half oxtail with horseradish cream and half bacon, butternut, Stichelton and smoked onions. The ox tail was my favourite; utterly divine and the horseradish worked brilliantly atop a pizza – who knew! The other half was also a winner with the strong Stichelton cheese coming through in every bite.
Our other friends also went for half of that delightful Stichelton and half of the caprese which featured fresh tomatoes and mozzarella. It was refreshing and the unmelted mozzarella provided some most welcome texture.
We were all quite literally in heaven – every single flavour combination was outstanding. And the crusts, oh the crusts! Drizzled with the chilli oil provided, they were utter perfection.
My only problem with Homeslice was the space issue; it’s so cramped that when the people next to us got their pizzas we had nowhere to put our paper plates. And I’m not sure how I feel about paper plates either. Or the blunt pizza wheels. Other than that, Homeslice is bloody brilliant and I’d suggest you go right away. It’s some of the best pizza I’ve ever eaten.
8/10
