Just about worth the hassle

I have wanted to go to Franco Manca, apparently home to the most authentic Napoli pizza in London, for the longest time, but given that it is in the deepest depths of South London (well, ok, Brixton), I knew it would be a trek. But oh what a trek it turned out to be. Obviously Fil and I decide to go when the Victoria line is down, and didn't manage to get our arses ready until about 2pm anyway. Then we had all sorts of fun with the buses, including getting one going the wrong way, so we arrived finally at about 3:30pm. And this place closes at 5pm.

After getting a bit lost around Brixton market, we got there to find this humungous queue, like 30+ people in the queue. Yes, look at it! Fil hilariously went to try and find some sustenance to keep him going, and then bought a plantain without realising you can't eat it raw, hahaha!


We were in the queue for about an hour, I don't really want to think about how much time we spent travelling/queuing for a freaking pizza. And we probably sat down for about 15 minutes whilst we wolfed it all down. F went for the more classic margarita. It was as good as the ones I had in Naples, slightly sweet, slightly sour, a shame that I left it to get a little too cold:

And I should have known better than to order something a little funky. When I first read about the place a few years ago, it only had 3 or 4 very basic pizzas on the menu, and whilst the choice is still pretty tight compared to more commercial outlets, they now have a fixed menu of about 6 with another 4 or so specials each day. The one I went for was probably the most different to the margarita, a non-tomato one with crumbled sausage and some kind of pickled vegetable that I didn't write down:

I must say I struggled with this a little bit, the pickled veg was quite bitter, and I guess I was craving a simple margarita. Trust me to try and get too creative! But even more wondrous was the homemade lemonade:

Yes, looks really dark and oxidised and a bit dodgy, doesn't it, but oh it was soooooooooooooo good.

I hear Franco Manca now have a second branch in an equally inconvenient location of Chiswick. It does hearten me that little places like this get crazily popular, yet they still maintain that 'we don't care that our opening hours are really inconvenient, and yes we do insist on making everything fresh and in our own way' charm.