It was not going to win a first place in a beauty contest!
I thought observing the not-so-round and primitive Capricciosa pizza the waiter had just served me after not much of a wait together with my girlfriend’s Tagliatelle della Casa.
The La Luna restaurant has a cosy feeling that you won’t expect from outside, sandwiched as it is between some run-down shops in a quite unpolished building down Walworth Road. It has no more than a dozen of tables, all set on one level with an oven and a preparation area positioned in the middle of the floor. The atmosphere is definitely Italian without the cliché Venice gondoliers or opera singers pictured on the walls. In the background contemporary Italian songs were playing and the flat screen TV on the far off wall had the sound off.
The menu is of a manageable size and includes pizzas, salads, meat courses, pasta and only one kind of beer (Italian) and a handful of red and white wines.
The pizza was surprisingly good despite my first impression. However, there was some work to do on the base, and the peppers and ham had been cut too large and thick: they looked like they had landed on the pizza instead of being part of it. My girlfriend’s tagliatelle was al dente, the prawns were fresh and the sauce tasty.
The homemade Tiramisu was to be the best part of the meal: it had the right mix of mascarpone cheese, ladyfingers and coffee. It could have competed with my mother’s one.
The bill was reasonable and while sipping my espresso I realized that probably this is the way pizzerias ought to be: family-run with an informal but warm and unpretentious service and a pizza that doesn’t care to look pretty or not.
La Luna restaurant, 380 Walworth Road, London SE17 2NG
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