Little gem

Andrew Kay discovers a hidden wealth of authentic Italian cuisine at Pizza 500
I have a complaint. Why, oh why has no-one told me about Pizza 500 before now? I mean, it’s but an olive stone’s throw from Latest Towers, it opens at lunchtime and above all it’s good, I mean really good. Not that you can tell that from the outside. Externally, it gives the impression that they do take-away pizza and they give no impression that they do that well. In fact, they make amazingly good pizza. Well, they have to be good to get me enthusing about them because, I will be frank, pizza is not my favourite food. On the whole, I would rather eat cheese on toast. But Pizza 500 pizza is a different beast altogether.

I gathered up Ms P from the office and suggested that she join me for lunch; it didn’t take much persuading. I explained that it was a pizza place but how wrong I was, it is so much more.
The interior is somewhat more persuasive than the exterior and I was immediately spellbound by a man wielding a huge paddle at the side of two huge vintage Italian ice-cream making devices. Things were looking good.
The menu is simple but really does not do justice to what is to follow. We were both feeling hungry so we decided to give the menu a bit of a thrashing and started with a pizza, one to share I hasten to add. Its arrival at the table had us both oohing and aahing. The base was fine and crisp from the edge to the middle, the tomato sauce was thin with just a sprinkle of cheese, not mean, simply because after cooking once the whole surface had been covered in thinly sliced smoked tuna, flashed back in the heat I assumed and then topped with dressed rocket and halved cherry tomatoes. I promise you, this was a high pedigree pizza, totally blissful.

Whilst we waited a small glass of intensely flavoured lemon sorbet arrived, perfect in texture and ideal after our smoked fish starter. A very impressive start indeed. Next we shared a portion of gnocchi. Now I love gnocchi when they are good and detest them when they are bad. Anyone buying supermarket gnocchi would be as well buying rubber bullets. So it was a tough test by my standards and again they passed with flying colours. The little dumplings were as light as clouds and the sauce of speck, sage and butter was perfection. We demolished the lot and washed it down with a glass of very good red from the region where the Italian owner and chef grew up. I know, wine at lunch time, don’t tell, will you?

By now we were in full swing, a little merry and very excited by the quality to that point. Next came sausage. Now I have a fondness for a good sausage (quiet at the back), and these were simply great, certainly on a par with the spicy sausage from Camisa in Soho with just the right chilli heat and hint of fennel seed to add interest. They do a mild one too but we both like a little fire in our food and yes, they make them in the kitchen and do not buy them in. We had one sausage each and it came with amazing potatoes cooked with red and yellow peppers. On the side it had a caprese salad with first class mozzarella and a good dressing too.

We should have stopped there and then but the offer of a lemon and pine nut tart was too much to resist and we shared a portion. I’m very glad we did too because like everything else, it was made on the premises by the owner, a man who has given up a life in business to follow his passion for good cooking.

So finally to the ice cream. Well, you didn’t think that I would be able to resist that, did you? We made our way over to the cabinet and armed with a fist-full of tiny plastic spoons we did the full tour, starting with the milky and working our way up through a selection of increasingly intense flavours. The pistachio was superb, made with crushed nuts and not vile green essence, as is the almond and the amaretti that was full of punch and crunch. As we tasted, a new batch of chocolate was coming out fresh from the churn, so we tried that too and it was heavenly. Later they were going to stir dark rum through it, they’re that kind of people and I wanted to hug them.
My final taste sensation of the day was a scarily odd coloured ice cream, dark khaki. It was liquorice and made from fine and very expensive liquorice flour that is kept in a box that looks like it should contain fine Havana cigars. I suspect that it would not be to everyone’s taste but for me it was blissful perfection, sophisticated, grown up and simply wonderful.

Pizza 500 more than impressed once I was through the door and I cannot wait to go back and try more and more of their delicious dishes, although I suspect that the perfect gnocchi will be in there again. Oh, and for those of you who like to know how expensive the food is, it is very inexpensive.
Pizza 500, 83 Preston Road, Brighton, BN1 4QG, 01273 911933, www.pizza500.co.uk