Franco Manca

So, I’m walking down Coldharbour Lane, head hung low, three or four in the afternoon. The sun is not out, but the Clash is playing. A Clash song really does begin playing when I emerge from the Tube in Brixton on a dreary afternoon in December.

I have spent a decent amount of time in London over the past few years, but I come to Brixton today for three explicit reasons: to explore Brixton Market, to see the neighborhood that inspired so much good music, and to try what is reputed to be one of London’s best Neapolitan pizzerias—Franco Manca.

The pizzeria is tucked inside Brixton Market. Franco Manca is quite small, with the restaurant divided between two narrow spaces on opposite sides of the covered arcade. Even at three in the afternoon, there is a short wait. The walls are decorated with political cartoons that are more or less insane. But oh well. I am here for the pizza, not whatever all that is about.

Franco Manca is owned by Neapolitan Giuseppe Mascoli and attempts to make authentic Neapolitan pizza from carefully sourced organic ingredients. As with most great pizza, the key is the crust.

The dough is made with a sourdough starter and allowed to rise slowly for at least 20 hours before being baked in a wood-burning brick oven at roughly 930 degrees. According to the menu, the slow fermentation and rapid bake preserve the flour’s natural aroma and moisture, producing a soft and easily digestible crust. This sounds like marketing copy, but the final result is quite convincing.

The crust is soft, chewy, and deeply flavorful, with the light blistering and char expected from a very hot oven. The sourdough gives it more character than the average Neapolitan crust without making it taste conspicuously sour. It is the kind of crust that could carry a simple pizza nearly on its own.

Still, a great crust can produce only a mediocre pizza if everything placed on top of it is disappointing. That is not a problem here. Mascoli appears to put an almost obsessive amount of care into sourcing the ingredients. The cheese is buffalo mozzarella produced locally - a relative rarity in England—while many of the other toppings come from Italy and Spain.

I order the pizza with chorizo from Brindisa. The sausage is vivid, spicy, and excellent. Franco Manca makes its sauce from tomatoes grown near Salerno and harvested only during July and August. Little is added beyond salt, producing a simple but intensely tomatoey sauce.

The pizza is thoughtful without feeling precious. Every ingredient has a lengthy origin story, but those stories lead to something genuinely delicious rather than merely expensive. This is simply an excellently crafted pizza and one of the best I have had.

Remarkably, it is also cheap - an unusual quality in London and an especially unusual one for a restaurant with so much to say about the provenance of every ingredient. The most expensive 12- or 13-inch pizza on the menu costs only £6.80.

Franco Manca combines an exceptional sourdough crust, excellent ingredients, and a remarkably low price. It is well worth seeking out the next time you find yourself in Brixton.

Earlier visit — Dec 2009

Some of the best pizza I have had. Franco Manca is tough to find, inside the market off the Brixton stop, but worth the effort. The pizzas use sourdough crust and organic ingredients from Sicily and Naples. The pizza is expertly crafted in all details, It is also cheap, which is rare in London.