The Napoli, Leek

One day last week I had the best brunch I can remember in a while. Leftover pizza. Yes, you read that right.

After a bracing walk with the dog, a chill in the air with expected snow to come, it was with great pleasure that I heated up and ate the two comforting, bubbling and delicious slices of pizza I’d brought home from a meal at The Napoli in Leek the previous evening.

We’d gone with two friends to celebrate my birthday and, as I wanted well-made, tasty food in a relaxed atmosphere, I knew The Napoli would be a good bet as I’d thoroughly enjoyed my previous three or four visits. I’d also liked their Tesoro pizza eaten at The Beer Dock when the two teamed up so that while drinking from The Beer Dock’s vast range of beers, you could have a Napoli pizza delivered to you in the bar.

The Napoli is a large, open plan restaurant with shabby chic type painted wooden tables, mismatched chairs and a wall of books down one end, giving it a pleasant informal style which I like very much.

Dominating the middle of the restaurant is the traditional, brick, wood fired pizza oven. This is essential to the restaurant’s aim of producing authentic Neapolitan style stone-baked pizzas but it’s also a great feature as you can watch the pizzas being made. On the night we visited, the pizzaiolo on duty was very adept and it was fun to see him twisting and throwing the dough in the air to shape it before adding the toppings and sliding the pizza onto the stone floor of the oven to bake it.

The Napoli doesn’t just make pizzas, though. As well as pasta (all handmade and, like their pizzas and calzone, using traditional Italian flours), there’s a range of meat, fish, poultry and vegetarian mains to choose from too.

If I do have one criticism of the menu it’s that if you’ve set your heart on a pizza (like I had) there’s not a lot of choice of starter if you want to avoid bread overload as seven out of nine starters include bread. I would say five of those have bread as a substantial element. The two that don’t include any bread are Caprese Salad and Crispy Fried Ravioli.

Nevertheless, I opted for the Meat Platter which included a good variety and generous quantity of Italian cured meat and salami, nice toasted bread (I think the restaurant blackboard mentioned they use local Live Love Loaf bread, which is always good), olive oil, little cubes of scamorza cheese (similar to, but firmer than, mozzarella), lots of olives, a couple of artichoke hearts and dressed salad. This was a pretty substantial dish and I thoroughly enjoyed it, just needing a little help finishing off all the olives.

My partner started with the Crispy Fried Ravioli. I had a taste and it was very good; two large ravioli filled with soft leek and herbs. Besides the salad garnish, it came with a chutney type dip on the side. This probably wasn’t really needed as the ravioli were good and moist inside.

I tried a little of the Caprese Salad one of our friends had chosen which consisted of the usual tomatoes, cherry in this case, and mozzarella dressed with basil and olive oil. This was a generous serving and, as the mozzarella was a mild-tasting one, the main flavour was the basil.

Our other friend ate up all of their Bruschetta Parma – melted mozzarella and prosciutto on bread, dressed with rocket and olive oil, without offering a bite. So I guess he enjoyed it.

The wait between our starters and main courses was just about right, with the waiting staff making sure we had enough drinks in the meantime.

I’d pretty much decided on having a pizza before we arrived, but had made a mental note to ask for the smaller, 9 inch version instead of the standard 12 inch (on a previous visit I’d been unable to finish it). However, that thought flew out the window as delicious smells emanated from the pizza oven. Hence the pizza at home for brunch the following day.

I’d chosen the Guanciale and Avocado pizza, described as Roman dry-cured bacon and mozzarella, topped with fresh avocado.

The Napoli prides itself on using only San Marzano tomatoes in its sauces. It’s a variety of plum tomato generally regarded as the best due to its sweetness and low acidity. But I’m afraid I’m not a fan of tomato sauce on pizzas. Yes, I understand that may sound bizarre to people in the UK who could be forgiven for thinking that virtually all pizzas have some form of tomato sauce spread over the dough, but it isn’t the case at all.

In fact, if you go to a decent pizza restaurant in Italy, you might find that the menu has a whole section for ‘pizza bianca’ or white pizzas. Of so, you can almost guarantee this is where I’ll order from. Pretty much all the pizzas I make at home are white pizzas too. Mozzarella, fennel salami, marinated spring onions & Parmesan is a current favourite, although occasionally I’ll whizz up a sauce of roasted tomatoes, onions and garlic.

In most British restaurants, I tend to assume that any pizza will include a tomato sauce even if it’s not listed in the description and that was the case with the Guanciale and Avocado pizza at The Napoli. As the menu says to ask your server if you don’t see the pizza you want, I thought it would be fine to ask them to leave off the tomato sauce. Although our server seemed surprised at the request, I got exactly what I ordered. And it was fabulous.

With a white pizza, the quality of the ingredients really matter as the flavours aren’t disguised by a tomato sauce (with some poorer quality pizzas I find there’s actually little to taste other than tomato). Here, The Napoli’s use of strongly flavoured guanciale cured pig meat really payed off.

Described on the menu as bacon, guanciale is made from pig cheek or jowl (guancia is Italian for cheek) which differentiates it from the more familiar pancetta made from pork belly. This guanciale was definitely not for the fat-phobic; thickly cut into strips and with a rich, almost farmyard flavour (and I mean that in a good way) this is a world away from those mean-spirited and allegedly ‘healthy’ horrors I’ve recently been made aware of: bacon ‘medallions’ which have every bit of fat stripped away.

I think this pizza might actually be the best I’ve eaten in the UK: not too much cheese and with a crust that was cooked just right – nice and thin but not overcooked (I can’t abide burnt crusts). The thicker, bubbly edges were wonderful and chewy with a deep flavour of proper bread made with quality flour. The small pieces of avocado scattered hither and thither seemed a little stingy, but who cares when there was so much of that delicious, earthy, piggy, fatty guanciale?

In my experience, Britons rarely ask to take home their leftovers from restaurants. I’ve previously been guilty of that too (although, in my defence, I’m usually a plate-clearer so it’s something of a rare occurrence in my case). But, as we should all be aware these days of the sheer quantity of food that’s thrown away at home and in restaurants, it’s a habit we really need to get out of if we find we’ve ordered too much.

And what a great outcome to that new resolution – having the next day a fabulous brunch of top-notch pizza to warm the body and soul.

My partner had the Artisan Pork and Fresh Chilli pizza featuring handmade Italian sausage, artisan pepperoni, fresh chilli and rocket. This was quite a tomato-ey affair, which he really liked. I contented myself with just a taste of the sausage which had a pure, rich pork flavour. The pepperoni was good and not overly salty as it sometimes can be.

Our friends, not being pizza lovers, went for free-range breast of chicken stuffed with ricotta and sage, wrapped in Parma ham and served with a delicious mix of spinach and potato, and the skewers of lamb which had been marinated in rosemary and garlic.

Both were mightily impressed and, based on their experience, I resolved to order from the non-pizza menu next time (if I can resist the guanciale).

In another nice teaming up with a fellow local, independent business, The Napoli offered on its dessert menu two from Miscos Chocolates and Truffles. We chose the chocolate cake, having tasted their incredible Chocolate Mirror Mousse Cake which was voted the winner in the 2017 Leek Food and Drink Festival’s Great Leek Bake Off cake trail. We weren’t disappointed either with this beautiful-tasting, rich but not cloying confection that was definitely more chocolate than cake. Our friends, more lightweight in their eating habits than us, shared and polished off a strawberry cheesecake served with ice cream.

The bill, which included 4 pints of beer, 2 large glasses of house red wine and 2 large soft drinks came to just under £33 per person which I consider pretty good value for this standard of food.

Front of house staff were very good too and we were served in a friendly and efficient way. They appeared to have a new member of waiting staff who was being trained to take orders but this didn’t interrupt service at all.

It’s also great to see that The Napoli uses lots of local suppliers, as well as those already mentioned, such as their greengrocer, butcher, fishmonger, the wine and whisky shop and a local antiques store for their interior.

Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable evening and no doubt we’ll continue to go whether back to The Napoli whether for a Neapolitan style stone-baked pizza or one of their other carefully made, tasty dishes.