Restaurant review: Seriously dough, these pizzas are a real success

Pizza at home kits from Uno Pizza in Rathmines and Dough Bros in Galway

Uno Pizza: a slice of restaurant quality.

• Uno Pizza, Rathmines, Dublin 6
• 01-5158848, [e-mail]
• Family Kit’ consisting of dough and toppings for Three Pizza cost €39.50.

Pizza really is the world’s food. And yet it is extraordinary to think that up until the mid 20th century pizza from Naples was considered dirty and unpleasant by many Italians, mainly due to prejudices against Neapolitans who were viewed as cholera-ridden peasants (cf. ‘Delizia’ by John Dickie).

These days any urban dweller in the world can have pizza delivered to them within the hour (between 5-11pm anyway). But there is a problem. The best Naples-style pizza has a thin base, is light on toppings and almost always arrives limp and cold no matter how quick the delivery, it really needs to be eaten straight from the oven.

A domestic oven rarely heats beyond 240°C when ideally you need at least 100° more. So this week I tried two home pizza kit options that attempt to solve the problem and both worked brilliantly but for different reasons.

Uno Pizza in Rathmines has always had a solid reputation and their Frying Pan Pizza idea is actually ingenious. I’d come across the idea before but had doubted its efficacy — they proved me wrong.

The kit arrived neatly packaged and contained three balls of fresh dough plus small containers of tomato sauce, cheese (mozzarella and parmesan), salami, extra virgin olive oil, basil leaves, and extra flour. The key to pizza is the dough and Uno’s was incredibly light and silky and I suspect was the key to this kit’s success.

Twenty minutes ahead I turned my grill to its highest setting and placed my largest frying pan on the hottest ring of my cooker. Non-stick is recommended but I found my Le Creuset cast-iron pan worked well. 

Once the pan was blistering hot I dusted the dough balls and flattened them before transferring the dough to the hot pan and pushed the dough to the edges. 

I quickly added the tomato sauce, cheese, and toppings and after, 2-3 minutes a quick peek showed the base had begun to brown. Under the grill for a further three minutes and the cheese was bubbling and the crust was crisp and mottled with dark brown flecks, just as it would be from a wood-fired oven.

The dough was light and airy, the crust crispy and the toppings flavourful and moreish. A tiny downside was that I had to make the next two pizza while the family devoured the first but the next two pizzas took just five or so minutes each so I was sitting down within 10 minutes eating piping hot proper pizza with a bendy, thin base, and classic flavours, and all for under a tenner a pizza.

Eugene Greaney of Dough Bros

• Dough Bros, Middle St., Galway.
• 085-2145283
• Home Pizza Kit including 3 pizza plus extra toppings and dips & two beers cost €50.50.

Dough Bros Pizzeria in Galway became nationally famous, it seemed within a few weeks of opening, around a decade ago. 

The Dough Bros kit was ordered 10 days in advance and arrived at 9.30am on a Saturday morning. Delivery is supposed to be on Fridays but given the pressure on delivery drivers I was warned that a Saturday delivery was a possibility. 

Despite the delay, the contents were still cool to the touch, although a pesto container had been damaged, so a tablespoon or so of pesto was lost to the interior of the box.

The standard 3-Pizza kit costs under €40 — almost identical to Uno’s kit, but uses Toonsbridge Fior di Latte cheese and has extra toppings and gratis wild garlic dips. 

I added Real Olive Co. Olives, Basil Pesto, Wooded Pig Salami, and two cans of Dough Bros beer at €4 each (White Hag Session IPA was substituted and was equally excellent), for a total of €50.50.

Dough Bros pizza at home: 'a proper treat'

First I heated our oven to full blast for an hour prior to cooking. The three pizzas were part cooked and vacuum-packed and once removed from packaging I added extra tomato sauce, cheese and toppings and cooked them in the hot oven for a further eight or so minutes.

The pre-cooking meant the Dough Bros base was a little firmer than Uno’s but the quality of the 72-hour fermented dough still shone through. 

The top-quality pesto, salami, olives and mozzarella were also a significant highlight and while not as good as sitting in Eyre Square with an open pizza box in front of me, this was a proper treat.

Both pizzas survived the toaster test the next day and are warmly recommended.