potato pizza at the Regent
Since the Regent opened a year ago, I’ve been a fan. During the day, it’s a bright, airy place to park yourself with a paper or laptop, and at night, it’s a warm, friendly place to have a drink and eat good pizza.
As we all do with neighborhood places, I have my habits (ruts?) now when it comes to ordering. I always get the vegetable pizza or the spinach pizza – the latter because it’s super garlicky and has an egg in the middle, which adds yolky creaminess to mellow the garlic. Genius.
The other night, I was with friends who ordered the potato pizza, which I’ve seen on menus in Rome but have never gotten around to trying. So I tried it. And now I’m going to add the potato pizza to my Regent rotation. It’s not the bland carbo bomb I expected. In fact, the cheese has the strong salty tang of gorgonzola, and the sweet creaminess of the potatoes mellows out the gorgonzola. Balance in all things.
The pizzas can take a while to show up at your table (because there’s only one wood-burning oven), but the Regent is a relaxed place, best enjoyed when you’re not in a rush. The pizza’s no New York slice, but it’s still pretty tasty. And it’s hard to find a better dinner for £7, which is what most pizzas there cost.
The Regent, 201 Liverpool Road, N1 1LX, 0207 700 2725; closest tube stations: Angel and Highbury & Islington
Good Wednesday afternoon RWApple.
That sounds perfect for my last night in London ! Thank you !!!
I’ll be on overload from the fancy food, so this will be the exact right thing to have ! Yummm !
(i can’t wait for April
This reminds me of the “vegetable” pizza we used to get in Japan – complete with corn and potato salad and oddly delicious.
Loving Annie: If you want a break from fancy food in London, pizza at the Regent would def be a nice addition to the mix. So would some quality Punjabi food at Tayyabs or Lahore Kebab House, though, so keep those in mind as cheap, tasty options when you come to London.
Mo: Potato salad is a popular topping in Taiwan, too, as I recall. I’ve never tried it, though. Mayo on a pizza pushes the envelope too much, methinks. But the potato pizza seems legit, if for no other reason than that I saw it a lot on Roman menus (not that Rome is the home of pizza, but it’s got *some* cred, no?). In any case, it was pretty yum when I tried it the other night.
I love the Regent. I always try to swing by when they have their £5 pizza deals between 12-4 on weekdays. Have you been to their other location called “The Lauriston”? I hear it’s just as lovely.
Hey Aromy, I’ve noticed the £5 lunch deals advertised on the Regent’s outdoor signboard, but sadly I’m not in the nbhd on weekdays (my office is nowhere close to anything, really). The Lauriston sounds good, but not a destination type of place, and I haven’t found myself in Victoria Park for other reasons. I’ll have to explore that nbhd, though.