A name-change has seen art’otel Battersea’s airy ground floor restaurant become TOZI Pizzeria & Cicchetti Bar. No prizes for guessing what’s on the menu then, but whilst the menu has a little rejig, the interiors remains largely the same. That’s a good thing - art’otel knows a thing or two about designing nice eating spaces. TOZI Pizzeria & Cicchetti Bar features the same stylish interiors as before, complete with striking woven pop-art tapestries hanging high overhead. Huge panoramic windows mean the space is flooded with natural light throughout the day. Everything feels neat and spacious, and the towering ceilings lend the space an air of luxury, even though it is at heart very accessible and down-to-earth.
So, what’s on the menu? The big change of direction is in the form of a new pizza counter, where a pair of pizzaiolo’s skillfully swing fresh pizzas in and out of a behemoth pizza oven. If you’re a pizza classicist, you can’t go wrong with TOZI’s pizza Napoli, laden with strips of fior di latte, olives, and fat, glistening anchovies. We can’t resist the allure of double sausage pizza, which pairs classic fennel sausage with fiery ‘nduja - another classic combination well executed.
There’s good stuff to be found among the cicchetti menu as well. A huge pile of zucchini fritti arrives, impressively balanced; they’re still crisp, not suffering from the limpness or grease of under or over frying, which is a tricky thing to pull off. A generous slab of aubergine parmigiana passes muster too. For a hotel restaurant in glam Nine Elms, the prices are quite reasonable, emphasised by a £6 orange chocolate tart that is so generous it finally defeats our appetites.
Some may find themselves slightly limited by the choice between sharing small plates and pizzas, with only a handful of pasta dishes as an alternative. As an all-day, catch-all restaurant for the hotel, TOZI Pizzeria & Cicchetti Bar gets a great deal right, at a price that should keep it buzzing through lunch and dinner.