Finding a good, classic Italian restaurant in London is harder than it sounds. I’ve found my personal favourites over time, but still to this day they’re always missing that one little thing. Whether it’s the ambience, a not quite satisfying starter or tiramisu lacking that Marsala kick. With my newest discovery however that may all be about to change, because Pizzicotto on Kensington High Street is the whole package. A wood fired bistro and pizzeria serving classic, modern Italian food in the heart of Kensington.
Pizzicotto opened back in 2015 and comes after 50 years of success from its sister restaurant, Il Portico, located just a few doors down – another one for the list. Operating a successful restaurant for so many years means the family behind this business know exactly what they’re doing. They understand Italian food & wine and serve it all with passion. It’s looking great inside too, decked out with rustic chairs and pastel blues giving it a slightly beach house look, complete with a beautiful hand-tiled wood-fired oven at the end. A few cocktails down the hatch and some terrific fresh olives got us salivating before we even looked over the menu.
We started our meal here with three very well executed plates of food. The Culatello di Zibello with tigelle modenesi & aged balsamic was an absolute stunner of dish. Two slices of thin and crispy bread straight out of the oven and topped with one of Italy’s most famous hams, which quite literally melts away in your mouth. The burrata with chargrilled zucchini and confit tomato was a fantastic showcase of Italian produce with juicy fresh burrata, zucchini so thin and smokey its flavour lingered in your mouth for minutes after and the sweet tomatoes rounded it all off. Three must order dishes when visiting Pizzicotto.
With a wood fired oven at this restaurants core it comes with no surprise that the pizzas here are absolutely stunning. Some of the best in South West London to be precise. Each pizza is proofed for 72 hours, cooked in a wood fire & and made with unrefined & stone ground organic flour from a water-mill in the Apennine mountains. We opted for the La Via Emilia – topped with Prosciutto crudo, parmigiano & ruccola. The base was well cooked, the tomato sauce had not an ounce of tartness and each topping had so much flavour that every bite was simply a dream. Perfectly priced too at just £13 for this beauty. The steak offering was a gargantuan grilled rib of 40 day aged Italian beef weighing up at a cool 600g, seasoned, charred and cooked to utter perfection – paired with a rich and jammy Tanca Farra from Alghero. I couldn’t eat/drink it all alone sadly, but I gave it my best attempt.
By this point in the meal we were contemplating on skipping dessert altogether given all we’d just consumed – but in the name of research we ploughed on and ended up discovering one of the best scoops of ice cream we’d ever encountered. The classic tiramisu was every bit as perfect as we’d hoped, rich, decadent and balanced. Chocolate brownie was OK, lacking in moisture and richness – but the scoop of hazelnut ice cream was incredible. The flavour was so precise you could have easily been eating a handful of nuts and the texture was soft, yet with a lovely chewy bite. They need to start packaging and selling the stuff – it’s that good.
Pizzicotto was such a refreshing dining experience in what is an otherwise flooded dining scene right now. while others are creating variations of Italian cuisine with new and exotic ingredients, Pizzicotto are quietly cooking traditional modern Italian food on Kensington High Street with currently only its locals in the know – though I’ve no doubt that’s all about to change. If you’re looking for honest, faultless Italian cooking then look no further. I’ve already re-booked.
I was invited to review
