Going Out-Out: Cinquecento Chelsea
Is this another dimension? Or is this just my first IRL review of a physical restaurant since the start of Lockdown 3.0?
Either way, the last fortnight has felt a bit like breaking out of the Matrix, having taken a little red pill to forcibly remind ourselves of a difficult truth: that al fresco dining is at once both the ideal way to enjoy a meal, and often really bloody cold.
“No matter”, I thought, as I decidedly neglected to bring an extra layer on my outing to Cinquecento. “It is sunny and I am eating Italian food, it is simply not possible for me to be cold.”
I was simply too damn excited for the simplest of pleasures. Pizza, aperitivo cocktails and wine with a friend. How many times have I done just that, and thought little more of it than as a quick, cheap catch-up? This time around, I scoured the menu for a great deal of the preceding afternoon, lingered over every pizza topping description, and bounced around telling everyone in the house four times that I was going to eat pizza with my friend tonight.
“But Ailis, you can get takeaway pizza”, you might say. Yes, yes you can. But frankly I have had quite enough of lifting my pizza out of a box, and taking a lukewarm bite before popping it in the oven to reheat, and then realising that you’d just ruined the consistency of the cheese or turned the crust rock solid.
A spread for lingering: Burrata Pugliese with San Daniele ham and artichoke hearts
No, I was ready for pizza, outside, like an Italian. So when me and my friend – who I had not seen in a year, contributing substantially to the excitement – turned up at Cinquecento’s Chelsea spot to find dinky, vased flowers on the little umbrella-covered tables, on a terrace among the partially pedestrianised triangle of streets surrounding Chelsea Green, I felt like I’d just walked into the bloody Piazza San Marco.
The 6.30pm sun was golden, indicating precisely the right time for a negroni sbagliato and the first stages of a lingering spread. A little skillet of parmigiana Napoletana on the side arrived drenched in an obscenely rich tomato sauce, the sweetened meat of the aubergine alternating oomph with silky relief. A big, fit-to-burst ball of creamy burrata Pugliese came with lashings of 24-month aged San Daniele ham, and unexpected but very welcome artichoke hearts. Rocket with tomatoes could have done with dressing, but we all knew what part of the arrangement we were really here for.
Cinquecento’s pizza pedigree is spot on from a London standpoint. The team behind the restaurant first worked together at the original Franco Manca in Brixton Village, and later in the legendary kitchens of west London’s Santa Maria. All roads, however, lead to Napoli. Cinquecento is named for the 500-degree temperature of the restaurant’s Neapolitan pizza oven, a searing heat designed to cook pizzas quickly in the style of Italy’s pizza capital.
The result at Cinquecento is this crust – THAT crust, if you will. A 48-hour-fermented dough puffs up to, quite honestly, the most extraordinarily light crust of that size I’ve ever tried. Minimal resistance but still a good amount of stretch, a heckload of flavour, and a healthy amount of blackening on all over. For heathens who leave their crusts behind, I dare you not to eat every single bite.
Nonna knows best: Pizza topped with Italian sausage and fried aubergine
As for the centre, the Bufala margherita – my regular order – was good, the winner being the sauce. I like mine fresh and dripping eagerly, which was achieved excellently here with the use of DOP San Marzano tomatoes, naturally sweet with minimal intervention. The undisputed, musclebound champion of the day, however, was Nonna – or her pizza, at least. The pizza della Nonna’s tomato base is scattered with nuggets of both beautifully seasoned Italian sausage and crispy fried aubergine, before being piped exquisitely with meringue-like kisses of the creamiest ricotta. I think I have thought about it in advance of dinner time every night since.
After consuming both starters and an entire pizza to myself, it only seemed right to end this victorious return to form with a triumphant chalice of tiramisu, mascarpone laced with just the right amount of booze and sweetness to convince me I had made the right, belt-busting choice.
By this point, the uncomfortable truth that I really should have packed another layer was setting in – the pizza oven may have been 500 degrees but, despite the valiant attempts of numerous patio heaters, outdoors was not. Al fresco dining may not be in its element right now. It may never really be when you’re doing it in England. But armed with the warm glow of good pizza, plentiful wine and much-missed friends, I’m pretty sure I can take on any element it will throw at me.
This meal was supplied as a complimentary press sample. Cinquecento Chelsea is currently open for outdoor dining, delivery and click-and-collect.
For more information, visit cinquecentopizzeria.com
