Send email<\/a><\/p>\nKids like pizza. This is supposed to add to the appeal but to me it makes it worse. Pizza is the Toy Story of restaurant orders \u2013 something the whole family is supposed to enjoy but, let\u2019s be honest, if it was genuinely aimed at adults, the children wouldn\u2019t be interested. <\/p>\n
On our final day in Italy \u2013 six hours of driving, almost as long spent buying last minute presents at the supermarket, checking in to an expensive hotel too late in the evening to enjoy any of the amenities \u2013 we had to somehow find a reasonably priced dinner for six. <\/p>\n
And though after 30 days of pasta I would have killed for a beef vindaloo, Victoria found a highly rated pizzeria \u201cnearby\u201d. (These quotation marks are not aimed at her; in big European cities this word means anything within a 25-minute drive, usually involving a 130km\/h toll road but only sometimes an unexpected three-point-turn in Geneva). <\/p>\n
I drove to the restaurant (Pizzeria di Michele de Lorusso, for the record) with low expectations. I had already composed most of this column in my head and was mentally leaning into the most radical aspects of my new opinion. <\/p>\n
We found a carpark in the shadow of a typically confusing Italian street sign (no parking between 9am and 8pm except on stadium event days or when accompanied by two or more Sagittarians in the back seat), and approached the restaurant, which was around the size of our hotel lift with just as much decoration and ambience. <\/p>\n
I let Victoria choose the pizzas (\u201cthey all taste the same anyway\u201d, this was a key cornerstone of my new belief system) then we assembled six stools around a tiny table and waited. <\/p>\n
If the headline writers have done their job, you\u2019ll have already worked out that the next few minutes did not turn out as I expected. The proprietor arrived at our table with (I try not to use this word too much despite its clickability) the BEST pizza I have ever eaten. <\/p>\n
Better than that, it was the best meal of the entire holiday \u2013 good enough to vanquish my entire \u201cPizza sucks\u201d worldview as soon as I set eyes on it. <\/p>\n
Victoria had ordered the ortolana, a vegetable-heavy option towards the bottom of the menu (the adult section). The base was thick, like good focaccia, served in slices around the size of a computer keyboard. Slathered in tomato sauce and mozzarella, it had been baked at high heat until the cheese melted into a heavy blanket. The chef had then removed it from the oven and heaped it with lightly grilled vegetables \u2013 courgette, eggplant, capsicum – and, finally, red onion and a handful of market-fresh rocket leaves. Every vegetable tasted of itself; the whole thing tasted of heaven. <\/p>\n
So much of a taste experience is influenced by the look and shape of food, and one of the most exciting parts of this dish was the way the huge slice had then been cut in diagonal lines both ways to create bite-size diamonds which were perfect when poked with a plastic fork then rushed into your mouth (obscure reference I know, but if you remember cousin Richie\u2019s deep-dish pizza scene in The Bear\u2019s \u201cForks\u201d episode, you\u2019ll understand how appetising those neat, plump mouthfuls looked). <\/p>\n
I ate it at 9pm, in 33 degree heat, washed down with a cold bottle of Italian lager. Having started the day miserable about flying home, I was cheered up enough by this meal that I drove back to our hotel with a big tomatoey smile on my face. <\/p>\n
Pizza is back, baby. It might even be my favourite food. <\/p>\n
More from Jesse Mulligan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I know, I know. You don\u2019t want to hear about the best parts of my month-long European holiday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8473,13017,3300,22850,5173,3974,22852,5243,2004,4479,5,22846,22849,22854,22847,16091,22848,22853,996,4486,18532,22851],"class_list":["post-33646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-about","tag-best","tag-disasters","tag-dont","tag-european","tag-found","tag-hear","tag-holiday","tag-in","tag-is","tag-italy","tag-jesse","tag-know","tag-monthlong","tag-mulligan","tag-out","tag-overrated","tag-parts","tag-pizza","tag-the","tag-truth","tag-want"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}