Here’s a pizza advice (I hate myself for that)

When it comes to eating out I’ve always had a bit of an issue with Italian food. I know it borders on racial stereotyping but I have always felt a bit cheated paying 8 or 9 quid for a bowl of pasta that I know cost about 60 pence for the ingredients.  Is this my Scotcher “thriftiness”? Mebbes it is.

I have no issue with the insertion of a fingertip when it comes to the price of food but I usually felt the uncomfortable thud of a shoulder joint when presented with the bill in an Italian restaurant.

All of that said, if the food is good I’ll take one for the team. Which brings me nicely to a new pizza place that has opened on Creu Coberta 64, near Pl Espanya*  called, imaginatively, Pizza Loca. It opened a couple of months back and during one of the many street fayres I got talking to one of the guys Fabio, who runs it.  They were aware that in Barcelona there was a place in the market for a place that did authentic Italian food. They decided they’d be a little pricier than the surrounding competition as all of the ingredients were going to be sourced from the aul’ country. Apart from the pizzas they were only going to do four or five pasta dishes but with the crazy idea they’d do them really well.

Cow & Pizza

So, to the food, yesterday we had a quick lunch, I went for a steak salad, while hersel’ had the ricotta, ham and salami calzone. Even though the place is supposedly a little more expensive than other places in are mine was 7.50€ and the calzone, which was very generously filled incidentally, was 8.50€, with beer at 2€ a go it’s not going to break the bank. Both dishes were sensational, my steak in particular was as tender as Natalie Portman’s inner thigh. (Sorry, her Chanel advert is never off the telly at the moment and she is firin’)

Albeit just a humble pizza it is easily the best I have tasted in this city, and with the exception of New York any other city I’ve visited. Don’t be expecting heaped toppings their pizzas are from the “less is more” stable.They also have a cracking selection of desserts, the cannolo was spectacular and well worth the sugar rush and coma that followed it. Good food, well prepared, friendly service and cracking value for money all in all just what you are looking for if you find yourself in the area.

Swally prices

*Just a word of apology/explanation about why my post entries seem to focus on the area surrounding Pl Espanya. As I have explained previously it’s where I live and with the dog (who I have no problem admitting is a child substitute) our horizons are a bit limited. Plus the fact we normally have far too much month left at the end of the money also plays a part.