Mamie's Food

Situated opposite Notting Hill Gate tube station is Farina Pizzeria, a restaurant that prides itself for “simply the best Neapolitan pizza we could ever imagine served in London”. Founded by two Italian friends from Naples and Salerno, they wanted to bring together their love of friends, food and fun. Their dough is twice fermented over 48 hours and their pizzas are a product of taste testing every pizzeria in London.

Sounds good, right? Alas, it was not. We didn’t get the memo that at weekends tables were reserved for groups of over six people and I wondered why they didn’t tell me that when I called to book. During the 15 minutes we waited I noticed its simple interior: wooden tables and long benches for larger parties, a pizza oven as you walk through the door and a small amount of outside space on the pavement.

After ordering a deliciously light bottle of Pinot Grigio, a rather disappointing plate of courgette fritters with truffle mayonnaise arrived. It sounds delicious but the fritters were soggy and the mayo tasted like Hellmans mixed with truffle oil. Not great. On second thoughts, I would have ordered the Arancini or Potato Croche instead.

The pizzas looked amazing and arrived fresh from the oven with charred crusts, but my San Daniele was overwhelmingly covered in rocket and prosciutto, with very little Mozarella and a few cherry tomatoes. Every bite was dominated by dry rocket and I barely ate half of it, which is unlike me as I hate food waste.

Charring on Peter’s Margherita gave it some good flavour but the pizza itself was sloppy. When paired with tomato sauce and far too much cheese, the thick dough became a little soggy and was extremely difficult to eat.

All in all, the wine was the only satisfactory experience and for such a romanticised founding story, it was disappointing. I would give it the benefit of the doubt and hope that it was just one of those days, but sadly we won’t be returning.

Farina Pizza, 19-21 Notting Hill Gate, London, W11 3JQ. Bookings Tuesday- Thursday and no bookings for groups of under six at weekends.
Link here: https://www.farinapizza.co.uk/