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Five to try: Fierce Ovens
Evening Standard 09.07.08
More than the ususal pizza: Giusto
Great steak: Maze Grill
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Sometimes it's the heat of the oven that makes or breaks a dish. Fay Maschler finds the best ovens in London.
FRANCO MANCA
4 Market Row, Electric Lane, SW9 (020 7738 3021) £10
In Naples, pizza is a religion. The Association of True Neapolitan Pizza has established strict rules concerning, among other things, the type of flour used, the temperature of the wood-fired oven and the time taken for dough to prove and cook. All are obeyed at this small, beguiling Brixton Market outlet run by Neapolitan Giuseppe Mascoli, where sourdough bases are blasted at 500C for less than two minutes and toppings are pleasingly restrained. Daytime only, but worth bunking off for.
L'ANIMA
1 Snowden Street, Broadgate West, EC2 (020 7422 7000) £65
In the kitchen of this dazzling new Claudio Silvestrin-designed Italian restaurant, chef Francesco Mazzei conjures some of his native southern Italian dishes from both a wood-fired oven and a charcoal-fuelled Josper. A dish of clams and mussels eaten last week had an alluring edge of smokiness. Black pig belly, aubergines (to partner burrata) and even peaches with amaretto benefit from the singular heat created by burning wood. And if roasted on a spit is how you like your meat, leg of lamb is cooked that way.
MAZE GRILL
10-13 Grosvenor Square, W1 (020 7495 2211) £75
When Jason Atherton researched New York steak houses he came to the conclusion that a high-heat broiler oven was the sine qua non for the crust that distinguishes a great steak from an ordinary one. A 650C broiler installed in the kitchen of his rather anodyne Mayfair restaurant does give a result that prompts some customers to say "this is the best steak I have eaten in England". Sourcing great meat is obviously important - a fact that hasn't escaped Atherton.
GIUSTO
43 Blandford Street, W1 (020 7486 7340) £38
Beneath a Venetian cicchetti (tapas) bar roars the heart of this Italian restaurant in the shape of a wood-fired oven. It burnishes not only pizzas - try Allegro, described as a white pizza, where the absence of pushy tomatoes produces a quite different experience - but also items like suckling pig. In fact with the well-researched Italian wine list and the enthusiasm of Giuseppe and Tommy, who selflessly gave parts of their names to the restaurant, Giusto delivers significantly more than the usual "going out for a pizza".
LA PETITE MAISON
54 Brooks Mews, W1 (020 7495 4774) £70
Knowing that in the kitchen there is a bespoke Athanor island suite including a four-zone plancha and three ovens plus three further ovens may help you view the bill at this would-be replica of the eponymous restaurant in Nice with a modicum of equanimity. Poulet noir with foie gras roasted to order attracts much praise, but cheaper, and in its own way as good, is roasted coquelet with preserved lemons. Now that it is theoretically rosé weather, it's fortunate that pink undercuts most other wines in price here.
Prices above estimate a meal with wine and service for one. n
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