You can’t move for excellent pizza in London right now. A new wave of pub residents (Dough Hands etc), slice shops (Vincenzo’s etc) and sit-down parlours (Ace Pizza etc) have transformed the city’s mozzarella-slathered fast food scene. And yet, Bar Etna in Newington Green is utterly correct in assuming there’s still room for more.
Ed McIlroy is now coming for London slice supremacy
Not content with serving one of London’s best burgers at his iconoclastic Finsbury Park gastroboozer The Plimsoll, Ed McIlroy is now coming for London slice supremacy. And working with Joe Beddia of Philadelphia’s Pizzeria Beddia (which was once declared ‘America’s best pizza’ by Bon Apétit magazine), he stands more than a fighting chance.
Much like McIlroy’s other excellent restaurant, Spanish-styled fish counter Tollington’s, Bar Etna is an immediate vibe. There’s a classy-but-fun bar up front, with Barbarella-worthy midcentury chrome lights, a big shiny bartop and sparkling bottles on the shelves. It’s a sleek 1960s Sicilian vino den which raises your cool factor by 10 points as soon as you step inside. Drop by for a £5 negroni while performatively reading some Nabokov, why don’t you?
The restaurant itself is on a raised mezzanine, with splashy canvases of assorted nudes and animals on moody wood panelled walls. It’s at once welcoming and slightly intimidating, but smells great (pizza often has that effect), and there’s a satisfying mix of hot dates, chaotic families with sticky-pawed kids, and cackling mates on the tightly packed tables. Looks like we’ve got another cool new London Italian on our hands (cc: Tiella, Dalla, Osteria Vibrato et al).
Those that can’t abide a lengthy, dicking-about menu, will be charmed. At Bar Etna the offering is beautifully simplistic. There is ‘cheese’, ‘salad’, ‘cured meat’ and ‘focaccia’ alongside four pizzas, each sizeable enough to share between two. The cheese is currently a squidgy pecorino fresca made in Yorkshire by a Sardinian guy. Perfect. It’s served drenched in extra virgin olive oil and with fresh cracked pepper. We eat it greedily, as if it were a slice of birthday cake. The salad is a simple flourish of lettuce and a smattering of radish, but the killer touch is its potent fish sauce dressing, which elevates our greens to a state of cruciferous enlightenment, thanks to that magisterial Thai tang.
Really, there are more than four pizzas, as all of them are customisable with mushroom, pepperoni, sausage and anchovy, making for a much larger number of possibilities. We could do the maths and work it out, but life is too short. We opt for the most un-trad of the lot, a curry pizza which is essentially saag paneer on a taut and torched base with an exactingly crisp bottom. It’s properly spicy, and pleasingly off-kilter, but next time I’ll be ordering the pizza with Calabrian chilli, greens and Coolea cheese, and I’m adding anchovies.
Bar Etna then; another spot-on Ed (McIlroy) banger.
The vibe A cooler-than-cool pizza parlour and wine bar.
The food Great pizza and surprisingly good starters.
The drink There’s a big list of volcanic Italian wines by the bottle, but just one choice of red or white by the glass. But, fantastically, there is also Lambrusco by the glass and £5 negronis.
Time Out tip Bar Etna is situated on a freshly-anointed hipster strip of Green Lanes, which also takes in the newly-opened bistro-pub from the displaced Papi lads, The Golden Tooth. Tick off both in one night.