I arrived at about 10.30pm on a Friday night, hoping it was late enough to get in easily. Instead there was a large crowd gathered outside and when I put my name down, despite only being one person, I was told the wait would still be an hour. In fact it turned out to be just over an hour.
Other than one group, everyone else in the queue seemed to be local, which was obviously a good sign and helped build anticipation. Unlike the simple and transparent queueing system of Da Michele, this place gave the feeling that if you knew the staff, you were given a seat first. I have no idea if that is the case but it certainly felt that way and judging by some reviews I've read online, I'm not the only one.
Once I was in, I asked for an English menu which had obviously just been put through a bad automatic translator. For some reason the margherita was listed only as "daisy" with no additional information. The only reason I knew that it was a margherita was because I had seen the Italian menu first.
There are three 5 euro pizzas: the margherita, marinara (tomato and garlic, no cheese) and the "filetto di pomodoro" (fresh cherry tomatoes on top rather than a sauce, from what I could see).
The rest of the pizzas are 8 euros. They also have some small dishes but they recommend ordering the pizza first because it will arrive much quicker and it's big enough that you might not need anything else.
I asked my waiter what he recommended and he said his favourite (and the most popular item on the menu) is the "Fondazione San Gennaro" (San Gennaro Foundation) which is a much smaller pizza but with huge crusts filled with smoked cheese and salami, then the small centre of the pizza has more of the smoked cheese and a tomato sauce, topped with crumbs of "taralli", a local bread stick snack. It was interesting and unlike any pizza I've had before, but I regretted my choice and half way through (it was very salty/smokey and I wanted something more simple), I asked for it to be boxed up and I ordered a margherita instead.
The waiter, who was very helpful, understood my situation and brought me a much smaller version of the margherita, which was actually the perfect size for how hungry I was, but then when I saw that I was charged the full amount still, I wondered why I wasn't just given the full-size pizza so I could take the rest of it in the box (which is actually what I had asked).
The margherita was delicious but given that it was nearly midnight and I had already had half of a very salty and smokey crust-filled pizza, I'm not sure how accurately I can judge it.
The waiter also recommended a tasty blonde beer to go with the pizza, instead of wine. It was expensive but great.
As a result of all of this, I'm not sure if I can recommend it, but it seems very popular with locals. If you can avoid the long queue then I'm sure it's worth it.
