Review
Pods opened about a year ago, with the crazy idea that if they made really good pizza - as God intended - added some funky flavours and sold them for a fair price that people would think that was pretty cool. So they did, and funnily enough, people love it.
You can eat in pods and they also do a take away service, so you can just veg in front of a box set, and share your pizza with those nice people in Game of Thrones.
The restaurant is simply designed in a traditional Italian trattoria style; there are simple wooden tables and chairs, with red rattan mats and light green painted walls combining to create the Italian colour palate. It's comfy and friendly and the tables are occupied with a mixture of friends and families out for a treat.
The menu offers some starters, pastas and of course the pizzas. Starters are of the classic variety, bruschetta and prawns pil pil feature, while the pasta sauces are more fusion, with a smoked chicken, pesto cream and asparagus being the most popular.
The pizzas are freshly made and cooked in an oven imported specially for the purpose. Everything is made fresh daily and they use on the best ingredients, including Caputo ‘00’ flour, real Italian Mozzarella, San Marzano tomatoes and slow proven dough.
A starter of prawn’s pil pil comes with delicious homemade garlic bread, and only a superhuman effort stops me finishing all the bread with the garlic oil and running out of room for the pizza. Purely for research I have a tiny bowl of the smoked chicken and asparagus pasta with creamy pesto sauce and it is delicious.
I ordered the Smoked Pancetta pizza with roasted red pepper, rocket, chilli and parmesan, with an extra topping of spicy pepperoni. The base is crisp and fresh, while the toppings are readily identifiable, and taste of themselves.
This is a million miles from the chain store pizza that to me looks like a mess of frozen or processed items thrown together and cremated, with the addition of a ton of salt to make up for the flavour deficiency.
I left Pods very happy, the food and service are great and it’s a very pleasant spot to pass an hour or so. I brought home a slice of their homemade Tiramisu, which was excellent with a cup of tea and the fifth series of Breaking Bad.
If you like pizza, go there, it really is very good indeed.
