I’ve already complained on this blog about the lack of decent food in Selfridges, Birmingham.
So it was with some trepidation we stepped across the threshold of Rossopomodoro, a new pizza-pasta chain with some pretentions of authenticity in Selfridges Food Hall.
There is some expectation it might be decent. They name check Slow Food (not my thing but recognisably not a bad thing), and DOP and DOC (not the rapper) on their website and import both their flour and their mineral water from Italy. This is not actually very cool because both flour and water are abundantly available in England (someone let them know), but at least they are trying I guess.
Service is impressively nonchalant/horizontal, which is certainly authentic when I remember our holiday in Rome, the one where we ate about as badly as we could in England. But actually, bring the drinks over yeah?
Starter was burrata. This mozzarella “pouch” filled with cream and mozzarella scraps (thanks Wikipedia) is lovely and creamy. But presumably they didn’t make it themselves and it was £7. It was served with crap tomatoes and stale bread and a couple of anchovies.
By now I was beginning to despair of the meal entirely.
But – hang on.
The pizzas were … actually extremely nice.
A light, soft dough with a bit of char on the crust from the wood-fired oven. A tomato sauce that was zingy and light and tomato-ey (idiom copyright John Lanchester). Decent mozzarella in the correct proportions. It was … REALLY QUITE GOOD INDEED. Certainly the best pizza I’ve had in the West Midlands.
In the end I was so impressed that I forgot the bad things and we skipped away happily into the sunset.
We noticed this dazzling pizza oven the other week but dismissed it out of hand, mainly because like you say it’s in Selfridges! Nice find, we’ll have to check it out.
Btw could that lovely boy look any camper?
I don’t know why you bother eating out!