Due to the vagaries of the Public Transport System, most of the years I’ve lived in the South-East, it’s been easier to travel into Central London from SE, than travel to other parts of South London. However, due to moving house last year, there is now a bus that goes from the bottom of my road direct to Brixton. Now, I have heard that Brixton market is pretty good, foodwise, but it was only after Ms R had made an exploratory trip, found a nice little restaurant and offered to buy me lunch that provided the motivation to finally visit.

Franco Manca is in the heart of Brixton Market and is a pretty non-descript kind of place on first inspection. The interior looks and feels very basic, even taking into consideration it comes under the cheap and cheerful bracket of eateries. Tiled walls and marble slab tables made me think that the restaurant was previously some kind of butchers (it wasn’t, two restaurants preceded this one) and the menu was almost as austere; Only six pizzas in a pizza restaurant!

Things definitely started to pick up when I realised that not only are the pizzas made with a sourdough base, but the pizza oven was imported from Naples and a lot of care has been taken with the sourcing and provenance of the ingredients (organic Napolese flour, local meat and vegetables from named sources, chorizo from Brindisa in Borough etc). Even the lemonade and coffee is organic.

I went for the tomato and cured organic Chorizo pizza, with a tumbler of wine (at £1.40 a glass, you can’t complain about that). The pizza wasn’t bad at all, although I didn’t really get much of a taste of the sourdough in the base and also thought the amount of chorizo was a bit stingy. Service started off well and the staff were friendly and knowledgeable (although that’s not really difficult considering the paucity of dishes), but the service did tail off as the restaurant got full.

Whilst the pizza was pretty good, it didn’t really blow me away. However, if I had a local option between going to Franco Manca and the ubiquitous Pizza Express, I’d choose the former 9 times out of 10. I wouldn’t go out of my way to visit, but considering how exceptionally busy it got by the time we left (there was already a queue of about 15 people for a 30 seater restaurant), they certainly won’t need me to visit on a regular basis to continue in business. If you’re in the area, definitely give it a go, but get there at opening time to ensure you don’t have to wait for a table.