Just off the main high street of the Broadway in the heart of Tooting’s covered market, sits a quaint, classic Franco Manca pizzeria. The restaurant is very well situated close to Tooting Broadway station surrounded by plenty of shops and fun cafes.
The restaurant is different to the regular style of Franco Manca’s pizzerias, benefiting from the location inside the market; it is an open affair with wooden outside seating surrounding the oven and pizza station with a balcony for upstairs seating.
The sourdough is slow proved for a minimum of 24 hours to allow the flavours to fully ferment and develop to create the signature tang and chew that makes the restaurant so distinct in the UK pizza market. The pizzas are baked on site in the hot ovens taking only 40 seconds a pop. You can observe how the pizzaiolos aka pizza masters turn the dough out into hand-stretched the familiar discs and top them with delicious ingredients before placing them in to cook.
Try one of their seven pizza choices which includes a special curated edition by a famous pizzaiolo from Naples and a Michelin star chef. The special vary each day but expect ingredients like vibrant red piennolo tomatoes from Vesuvio D.O.P., roast potatoes cooked with jammy onions, and copocollo from Tuscany.
The ovens are one of the best aspects of the pizzeria, integral to creating an authentic Neapolitan style pizza, a custom shape for each Franco Manca restaurant since they are in operation at over 500 degrees for nearly twelve hours every day of the week.
With over 40 restaurants, including one taken back to Italy to prove its worthiness as a champion for Naples pizza, Franco Manca certainly knows what they’re doing in the kitchen and the Tooting Market edition is certainly no exception.