Pizzucci, Gloucester Road: ‘Eminently cool’ – restaurant review

Have you ever been to Filthy XIII? Or perhaps Blame Gloria? Eating in Pizzucci is very similar: dark, neon lights and pop music. Only instead of espresso martinis and daiquiris, it’s pizza and arancini.

Pizzucci has opened a few doors up from the Gallimaufry on Gloucester Road, from the team behind Bosco on Whiteladies Road.

It’s eminently cool. But not in a cold and unfriendly way.

I’m not sure whether it’s the napkin dispensers on the tables or the personable staff that bring it back down to earth, but once my eyes had adjusted to the light (or lack thereof) I found the whole thing rather refreshing.

So many restaurants in Bristol these days look the same. Stripped back, focus on the food, clean, white, bare wood. I commend Pizzucci for going in exactly the opposite direction.

It is dark but not actually this dark – the photo exaggerates

If Bosco is the chic and well-groomed Clifton parent, then Pizzucci is the rebellious Gloucester Road teenager. But can the teenager cook?

In short: yes. Although Pizzucci still has some tweaks to make if it’s to build a reputation for itself beyond the association with Bosco.

It’s a simple menu; arancini (£3 each), a couple of salads and pizza.

The truffle infused funghi arancino is the best, with the supplì sitting in bottom place on the podium for failing to deliver on the umami meaty promise of beef ragu.

A cross-section reveals all

Giving customers creative freedom to add their own toppings is a risky game. Four years working in Pizza Express taught me that when given the option, people will generally add absolutely everything.

While watching the unbridled joy turn to horror when people realise what they’ve done is fun, it doesn’t make the result any less repulsive.

Too many toppings means the base doesn’t cook, leaving you with a mountain of meat, vegetables and cheese atop a sloppy pile of raw dough, which is impossible to shove into your mouth with anything other than a spoon and some serious enthusiasm.

It’s also quite hard to make a topping combination that is better than what a professional chef might come up with, but it’s very easy to make one that is worse.

So, it’s entirely possible that the chefs at Pizzucci can cook, but the chances that their customers can is much less likely. Nevertheless, we must let people make their own mistakes.

If you do choose wisely, the pizza at Pizzucci is good.

We ordered an 11-inch cheese and tomato base with anchovies, olives and fresh garlic (£14) and an 11-inch white base with caramelised onions, sausage and mushrooms (£16.50).

By the time you’ve added a few toppings, the pizzas sit comfortably at around the £15 mark

The chew of the dough and flavours don’t quite match up to at Bosco, but they’re satisfying.

You can order impressive 16-inch bases if you’re with a group or absurdly hungry. Like at Pizza Bianchi on the Clifton Triangle, lunchtimers can also pick up a slice from their hatch on weekdays for between £3 and £4.

To serve a pizza without something to dip the crusts in is a crime.

Serving pizza with a McDonald’s-esque barbecue sauce is also a crime, but fortunately Pizzucci redeemed themselves with a bang average garlic and herb dip and then an exemplary cacio e pepe creation.

I’m not entirely sure how they plan to fit the 16 inch pizzas on the tables…

Cacio e pepe is one of the simplest and greatest gifts the Italians have given to the world, so why limit it to pasta?

From now on there should be cacio e pepe dip with everything. I can think of few dishes that wouldn’t be improved with such a pairing.

The carbs were being washed down with wine, from which the choice was between ‘good’ (£3.70) and ‘better’ (£4.90).

‘Bad’ and ‘palatable’ would have been more appropriate.

While the frozen margarita (£8) was enjoyable, you could have probably knocked back a bucket of the stuff before you’d need to worry about getting breathalysed on the way home.

You could probably serve this as a slushy in a children’s soft play and they wouldn’t know any different

The ‘Pocket Negroni’ (£8.50) from Edinburgh-based Whitebox Cocktails is served in an adorable little can that you can also buy to take home from the fantastic Food Shop almost opposite Pizzucci.

But it isn’t nearly bitter enough and misplaced its fresh orange garnish somewhere on the mass production line north of the border.

Cute, yes. Disproving my theory that all canned cocktails are the devil’s work? No

Finally, dessert; or lack of. Not because we’d eaten our body weight in carbs, but rather because they’d run out of the Swoon soft serve and only had one flavour of the bombolini left.

While I can’t possibly say without trying it what the Swoon soft serve is like, I’d be willing to bet it’s excellent.

Swoon on College Green sits proudly at the top of the ice cream league table in Bristol, and the flavours at Pizzucci are exclusives.

Our consolation prize was the one remaining flavour of bombolini, after being told half an hour earlier with confidence that they never run out of bombolini and there was no need to pre-order as both flavours would definitely be available.

As I said earlier, we must allow people to make their own mistakes.

The paper plate really cemented the dessert firmly in the category of ‘never order again’

The lemon cream bombolini was as pointless as the virtual queuing app that Pizzucci use in place of taking bookings.

It turned out the extended wait for it was not due to it being freshly fried, but because they had forgotten we’d ordered it. It seems they had also forgotten to fill it.

To say it was light on the lemon cream would be a vast understatement. It was a very disappointing full stop to our otherwise excellent meal.

If there was any filling in this, I didn’t find it

When we emerged, it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the comparative brightness of 9pm on Gloucester Road, but my mind was already made up.

I would return to Pizzucci if I was in the area and with a group of friends, but only if the Swoon soft serve was back in action.

Pizzucci, 5 The Promenade, Gloucester Road, Bristol, BS7 8AL
www.pizzucci.co.uk

All photos: Meg Houghton-Gilmour 

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