This was a visit I will not be forgetting for a long time. To cut a long story short it was essentially the best pizza I have ever had in my life and the main reason for this was the extraordinary dough base. Made with equal parts of water, flour, rye and potato, it is left to rest for 4 days before being ready to do its stretching before hitting the oven. Once your choices are made and it is ready, the result is a perfectly spongy and fluffy (with that wonderful touch of stickiness to the inside) with a thin base that was out of this world. It basically felt as if you were eating through a crisp at the bottom base as it was that crunchy with heavenly fluffy bread above so basically anything on top was always going to be ok because of that. As it happened, the topping choices were great. From anchovies and spinach to salami and warmed ricotta, to a pure tomato base with herbs and a hint of garlic and fresh cherry tomatoes off the vine – these were some of the strongest, natural toppings had on record and carried their own combo move of a Street Fighter ‘Hadoken’ by just being as fresh as they were.
The other brilliant thing about this place is that they don’t serve by the traditional quarter dinner plate size slice (which is always impossible to eat without looking like a Neanderthal), here you simply choose how narrow you want your slice and then this is cut to order with scissors, weighed and then billed as per the weight and topping. The final touch I absolutely loved was the fact that after barely a few minutes in the oven and all is ready, it is cut in to further bite size pieces with scissors again just to make even easier to eat – perfect. Ales and matched beers are also available in the Pizzarium fridge to provide the final polish to one of life’s must not combinations but absolutely must dos in this case.
The other brilliant thing about this place is that they don’t serve by the traditional quarter dinner plate size slice (which is always impossible to eat without looking like a Neanderthal), here you simply choose how narrow you want your slice and then this is cut to order with scissors, weighed and then billed as per the weight and topping. The final touch I absolutely loved was the fact that after barely a few minutes in the oven and all is ready, it is cut in to further bite size pieces with scissors again just to make even easier to eat – perfect. Ales and matched beers are also available in the Pizzarium fridge to provide the final polish to one of life’s must not combinations but absolutely must dos in this case.
If you are in Rome for any reason, get yourself in a taxi wherever you are and just get here for a grazing lunch or evening bite for the single, biggest no brainer of roughly a €20 lunch with drinks. Bonci is located in an area that resembled an estate outside of Deptford which was quiet and desolate, apart from the seeming coach load of Japanese tourists travelling to this specific eatery (Bonci pizza) in the same way they do The Fat Duck(!).
Sadly, as the pizza was so good, I walked away from here gutted on two levels: 1) I didn’t get to meet Gabriele Bonci and 2) every pizza I am due to have in the future I simply knew would not be as good as the one just had and I probably won’t have it that good again until I go back here. Something I simply have to do as a must in the next few years.
https://major-foodie.com/pizzarium-bonci-rome/
https://instagram.com/richardbagnold
