Leeds pizza parlour Pizza Fella claims to use authentic ingredients which 'elevates' their pizzas, so we decided to put the Italian restaurant and takeaway to the test.
Apparently the chefs use Italian tomatoes, called San Marzano grown in the Agro-Nocerino area of Campania. How succulent do those sound? I was picturing artisanal farmers slaving for years on their craft to grow the most perfect tomatoes for pizza.
The cheese also sounds pretty funky. It's called Fior di Latte. The cheese comes from the milk of a very special type of cow, called the Agerolese breed. I've looked into it and they apparently produce 20l of milk per day. That's incredible. (I really hope they're not overworked.)
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It was already clear to me the fellas (and female fellas) from Pizza Fella, in Vicar Lane, city centre, weren't messing about. We ordered a range of pizzas to sate our appetites.
The price is a few quid more than what you pay at other authentic Leeds Italians like Rudy's or Culto. We would have been tempted to order some extra toppings but a sprinkling of olives at £1.50, for example, felt like it was pushing it.
We ordered three pizzas, the nebrodi, neopolitan and funghi. There was a running theme, as expected the base was wafer thin, with just the right soft-chewy texture, with some seriously appetising looking air bubbles in bread. This is what made the pizzas truly fantastic, the base, the best.
Plus the tomato sauce was tip-top, really strong vibrant flavours from the San Marzano tomatoes.
So the nebrodi, I felt was a poor choice on my part. It looked quite plain, I felt like it could have had more going on. To be fair, the menu didn't misrepresent the toppings but it could have done with some vegetables to compliment the meat. And there was a lot of meat! Massive chunks of nebrodi black pig sausage.
I wish I had gone for something that offered more variety, for which there is a lot of in the menu. So I suppose I'm grumbling about this specific pizza and my poor judgement (I'll be agonising about it for weeks!).
We shared the neopolitan, this was incredible. Some really sharp vivid flavours. It came with anchovies and capers which combined really set my taste buds alight (and that's no understatement).
It could have done with some more anchovies, however. There were about four on the pizza in total. We were tempted to crack open a can and add a few ourselves.
My house guest ordered the funghi and by all accounts it was simply 'exquisite'. I didn't take that feedback lightly and neither should you. I implore Leeds pizza lovers to order from Pizza Fella. I believe they've launched a new menu since I made my order, so take the above as indicative of their quality and authenticity.
The bill
- Nebrodi - £13
- Neopolitan - £12
- Funghi - £11
Total - £37.80 (including Deliveroo service charge)
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