This Is Barely A Pizza, But It’s Delicious Anyway

A journey through London in search of a pie.

I AM IN KINGSTON STATION AND ALL THE TRAINS ARE CANCELLED. My girlfriend, Anishka, that’s anishka to you, is trying to get us to Tooting Broadway to try this pizza from Slab City Pizza, Detroit-style, cholesterol-tripling, heart-burning squares of cheese and focaccia.

A glimpse of what is to come.

To get from Kingston to Slab City Pizza, which is in Tooting Market, we have to get the short train to Wimbledon and then change onto a 5-minute Thameslink to Tooting station. This was where the troubles began, what would become a series of tribulations, each of which serving to reaffirm to myself my own commitment to trying this gorgeous pie, a pizza by which I would be tested and would succeed time and time again, until I and the universe felt I deserved it.

Americana

All trains, for both the Kingston —> Wimbledon and Wimbledon—> Tooting legs of the journey, are not running for the next few hours. This country, though gladly incorporating of rain and snow in our cultural identity, has always crumbled under the slightest heat. We elected to get the bus into Tooting, which was 40 minutes of compressed, hot air, but still our fastest option. On the way there, Anishka double-checked the directions to the Slab City Pizza in Tooting, only to find that it was permanently closed. A quick call in to the phone number listed on the site confirmed this - the location has been recently shut down, and we scrambled off the bus and towards the Clapham Common location, the only other Slab City Pizza around.

My Valhalla; my Golden Fleece; the pearly gates waiting for me in Clapham Common.

Clapham Common is nice, lovely even, perfectly pleasant, at a push. We didn’t explore much, because by this time we were both rather hungry and Slab City Pizza was a short walk from the tube station. Slab City Pizza is an American-themed pizza joint, offering both Detroit-style blue steel-pan square pizza, and the thin, flopping New York slices that demand to be folded lengthways. We’ll get on to talking about the pizza in a moment, but first I feel compelled to mention that, while I have never been and will never seriously be a food reviewer, and lack both the palette and the vocabulary to make any real headway in this domain, I am half-Italian, and quite the fussy eater, so pizza (especially margherita pizza) is something of a specialist topic.

The offerings of Slab City Pizza, Clapham Common.

I’ve had Chicago deep-dish pizza before, but I've never tried these Detroit-style squares, with the cheese fence crust. I don’t think that’s what it’s called, but it looked like a fence to me, a dreamlike curtain of burnt cheese which surrounded the soft, browning crust. I’d hesitate to call it a pizza, something about that feels wrong to me deep in my soul, perhaps in the Italian part, but whatever it was it was absolutely delicious. The layering, as far as I could tell, was crust - cheese - dollop of sauce - parmesan cheese, and I mentioned to Anishka at the time that I can see why they call it a ‘pie’.

Anishka, enjoying the pie.

If I have any criticisms to make, and I feel as though I should for the sake of providing a decent, all-round review, it’s that the sauce wasn’t very well distributed, concentrated only on the middle, which made the rest of the slice resemble more of a burnt-cheese-topped focaccia, which I suppose I was not complaining about. The thickness / lightness balance of the bread itself was noticeably competent, allowing for maximum hold and straightness without being too crunchy or difficult to digest. Again, it’s not a pizza, I feel strongly about that, but it is absolutely delicious.

HALF of the New York style slice - bigger than a Costco one.

The New York slice was not such an overwhelming success. It was still a good slice of pizza - though it’s worth mentioning my bar is very, very low. I’ve had hundreds, maybe even thousands, of slices of pizza in my life and I can’t say I've ever had a ‘disgusting’ one. Margherita, anyway. Some of them have been bad, sure, like the frozen ones from Sainsbury’s or something, but never disgusting. So of course it was good, I liked it, but especially compared to the cheese-crust heaven on a plate to my left, this slice felt mediocre at best. The cheese had a slight medicinal quality, heavily synthetic, but there was lots of it (again, too light on the sauce in my humble, humble opinion) and the base of the slice was surprisingly firm for an angle and size like it was. It held straight, didn’t flop or wobble much under pressure, but also didn’t hurt the roof of the mouth when biting. Structurally excellent, but lacking the volume of sauce and the quality of cheese required to be a truly excellent slice. The pepperoni was fine, not spectacular, as it always is, unless you get the chorizo and the larger, salami slices that they do in the local Italian restaurants. Because I am half-Italian, if I didn’t already mention.

Slab City Pizza introduced me to a new style of pizza; you might say that it redefined what a pizza can be thought of, if you wanted to sound totally unbearable. It didn’t quite do that for me - I'd still take an authentic Italian wheel over the big squares - and perhaps it’s not a pizza at all, but it is inarguably delectable. And - a big relief for both myself and Anishka, who had had it before and was recommending it to me - certainly worth travelling for, even with all those typical, systemic British failings.