Restaurant Review: some of the very best pizzas possible from Pompeii Pizza and The Curly Stu
Pompeii Pizza. Picture: Claire O'Rorke
- Pompeii Pizza
- Franciscan Well Bar, 14 North Mall, Cork, T23 RHW2
- Daily 3-10pm, 087 656 8246
Irish pizza has transformed entirely in recent years, and Johnny O’Mahony’s Pompeii Pizza has been to the fore of the modern revolution on Leeside. And, in the couple of years since my last sampling, appears to have evolved and improved even further, in particular with his woodfired pizza bases, the battleground on which pizza perfection is won or lost.
Blending Italian flour with an Irish heritage grain, hand-milled in-house dough then fermented and proved for up to three days, results in a base booming with flavour and a structure that yields an airy, chewy texture.
On the cold dark winter’s eve I collect my order. It is rather poignant to find myself the only soul outside the counter of the purpose-built Pompeii pizza ‘kitchen’, in the normally rammed Franciscan Well Brewery covered beer garden. Back home, I crank the oven up to full blast for 20 minutes; two minutes on the top shelf is the perfect ‘defibrillator’.
Salsiccia (Tomato Sauce, Broccoli, Olive Oil, Garlic, Chilli, O’Flynn’s Sweet Italian Sausage, Fior di Latte) offers nice textures and lovely crunch from the broccoli, while there’s a sweet and spicy kick from Nduja (Tomato Sauce, Nduja, Carmelised Onion, Fior di Latte, Parmesan, Fresh Basil) but the pick of the quartet are a classic Margherita Italiana (Tomato Sauce, Olive Oil, Fior di Latte, Parmesan, Fresh Basil) and my own personal favourite, a Pizza Bianca (ie, no tomato sauce) with potato slices, paprika, fior di latte, rosemary, parmesan and sea salt, where the interplay between base and toppings achieves a zen-like harmony shorn of the zinging acidity of usual tomato sauce.
Scotsman, Stuart Bowes, Michelin-star trained and formerly an excellent head chef of Barnabrow House, in East Cork, married a West Cork woman to seal his geographical fate and launch him on a love affair with Irish produce. It is immediately evident in the innovative toppings, exquisitely rendered on his pizzas, cooked on his converted horse box food truck, trading as The Curly Stu.
Bowes, too, knows the base is all and his own recipe, featuring a superb Italian flour from Ravenna, in Northern Italy, dough fermented at room temperature for up to two days, is quite simply one of the best I’ve ever tasted. That he is cooking them in two little Roccbox domestic outdoor pizza ovens is further testament to his skills.
- The Curly Stu
- Enniskeane, Newcestown, Coal Quay Farmers’ Market, Cloughduv
- Tel. 085 196 0706
It is a foggy dank evening when we fetch up outside O’Mahony’s bar in Newcestown, daylight rapidly fading away. The Curly Stu is sited in the pub’s car park —the hostelry itself sadly shuttered when it should be staving off winter chills on such a winter’s eve with hot whiskeys and even hotter bonhomie. One small function room has been converted into a provisions store, offering papers, random groceries and treats including wine to go with your pizza.
We can’t resist a Margherita straightaway and it is quite sublime, and, standing in the car park, juggling baking hot crust from hand to hand, relishing superb tomato sauce, swooping after cascading strands of molten cheese, blowing hard, trying not to wind up in the oral burns unit.
Bowes can chill pizzas to reheat at home and while not quite as perfect as our carpark Margherita, later that evening we relish: spicy Nduja: Margherita with Ardsallagh goat’s cheese, sweet piquillo peppers and West Cork Garlic scape pesto; pepperoni with Grano Padano and olive oil; and the superb savoury and sweet special, pumpkin and blue cheese, featuring a sauce of sweet pumpkin puree, fior di latte, Gorgonzola, red onion and fresh chilli.
Bowes trades around West Cork (Enniskeane, Newcestown and Cloughduv) and has also recently started at the splendid Coal Quay farmers’ market on Saturday mornings. While O’Mahony may be further along the road in his pizza journey, offering chill-blasted pizzas for finishing at home, kits to ‘build your own’ from scratch and recently venturing into a retail collaboration with Supervalu, in Carrigaline, Bowes is already delivering similar quality, albeit at a lesser volume, two superb artisanal practitioners creating some of the finest pizzas in the country. Were I completely shameless, I’d tell you they have all bases covered!
