La Caricatura

Being a pizza lover, having read La Caricatura's website and some of the reviews here, how could I resist? With high expectations we arrived after an afternoon walking around central London (I strongly recommend the Hunterian Museum to occupy a blustery damp afternoon). Less than five minutes after being seated and provided with menus and the wine list, we were asked if we were ready to order drinks; being extremely thirsty and seeing water glasses on the table, I requested some tap water, which we'd want with our wine in any case. The water didn't appear, but the waitperson began to hover about 2m from my husband's shoulder, clearly impatient. Soon he approached again, pointing to three wines he strongly recommended. We continued to deliberate, chose a slightly more expensive Barolo; he again recommended his three. We gave in and ordered the £45 red. The menu offered a reasonable but not particularly thrilling range of choices from salads through pastas to a few ‘English’ dishes and pizza; the hovering waitperson suggested a pasta dish in brandy and cream for me, as ‘the pizza oven is broken’ but I had pizza anyway, from the ordinary oven downstairs. I again asked for water, and was ignored. Our wine arrived, served with great ceremony through a rather complex aerator – though reasonable, it was far from memorable, which is why I can't remember the name! – but without water, I wasn't going to drink it. Every table had water glasses, none had water. Eventually I asked a different waitperson, who brought a jug. The starters arrived. His roasted vegetables with mozzarella was nicely arranged on the plate, but lacked any seasoning bar a faint drizzle of balsamic and was pronounced ‘boring.’ I recognised the flavour of my deep-fried squid rings and began to suspect a frozen-food supplier was involved somewhere. The mains arrived promptly; despite the lack of wood-fire, my pizza was good: light dough, crisp base, generous toppings. His grilled prawns and squid again lacked flavour, and he should have been provided with a finger bowl for use after de-shelling the (gritty) prawns. The dessert menu offered tiramisu followed by the standards: apple pie, cheesecake, ice cream, etc. The chill of his cheesecake suggested freezer, the flavour and still-frozen strawberry topping confirmed it. I eschewed dessert in favour of a barolo grappa with coffee. The rich fruity flavour described in the menu was almost completely overwhelmed by harsh raw alcohol that scorched my palate; a second cautious sip found some musty remnants of fruit at the end, but my husband could only taste alcohol and cardboard. Despite the £6 cost, I left half the glass.

Total cost with service as included on the till receipt: £125 for two, which would have been a bargain for the restaurant described on the website. As things stand, we'll go to Strada next time.

I'm Italian and I've been leaving in London for 7 years – this is the best Pizza I had so far.

Service is not perfect but they are getting better