La Gigante

££££│ Pizza (Eat in or Takeaway), Beer & Wine

Evenings, closed on Mondays │Directions & Opening Times on Google

When I walked into La Gigante for the first time I was like ‘Wow this is a proper pizzeria’. It feels very newly refurbished, it’s been tiled to mid-height in a deep red and then left largely neutral except for some lovely lights and a set of tables and chairs. Absolutely no bullshit whatsoever. It’s so nice to be inside there, top marks to whoever was in charge of the refit.

And it’s backed up by some very serious pizza. This is top-end pizza but it’s NOT Napoletana, which for me is both brave and very refreshing (…as the whole pizza zeitgeist has been moving towards Napoletana for some time now). So if it’s not napoletana what is it? I guess it’s actually what most people, especially from the older generations know as ‘thin and crispy’ Italian pizza, which is much more traditional in most parts of Italy. When you order a pizza here the base is really ‘croccante’ (crispy), they’re definitely using farina semola either on the pizza-making table or in the dough (or both) which is more classic for the deep south of Italy. If you hold a slice up it won’t flop over but will stay firm. They have a spectacular array of pizzas from humble options to more fancy-pants top-end choices packed with the very best local ingredients from Salento and Puglia.

If you’ve ever loved a really classic nineties Pizza Express pizza/pizzeria in the UK (before it turned in voucher printing MacDonaldsesque pastiche of its former self) then I’d recommend La Gigante as the kinda more authentic version of that (obviously with much better quality ingredients and superior understanding of pizza in the kitchen).

The only thing that’s a bit odd about La Gigante is that the pizza is …well…not that Gigante (Giant). I mean it’s a big pizza, but it’s not GIANT. A brief flick through the Facebook page though and it looks like pre their-most-recent-refurb giant pizzas maybe were their thing, or it could just be the name of the pizzaiolo (‘Gigante’ is a common surname in Salento).

Whatever La Gigante was in the past, that is for better or worse consigned to history, and in the here and now quantity has been replaced with quality. If that’s not one of the best reasons to visit somewhere then I don’t know what is.