Mezzaluna

Bury New Road, Whitefield

Mezzaluna is the latest addition to Whitefield’s very own festival of world cuisine. It’s an Italian restaurant serving up sourdough pizzas, pasta dishes and a selection of tapas. It may be the latest in a long line of Italian restaurants to have opened in the area, but this one aims to be a little different. It’s a family friendly pizzeria with a rustic and informal feel. It’s also the only local Italian eatery to boast a wood-burning pizza oven.

Housed in the former premises of previous Italian restaurant Antonio’s, and later Porto Conte, the interior has been drastically modernised to create an open, spacious establishment, complete with a large south-facing garden for alfresco dining.  The inside of the new restaurant is a vast improvement on the decor of the previous incarnation. The orange colour scheme is bright, fresh and modern, and the tiled floors in the entrance give it an authentic feel. The kitchen is open plan, so you can see the restaurant’s unique selling point, the huge pizza oven. The partition wall down the middle separates the majority of the tables from the open kitchen, so it’s not too noisy. The rest of it is quite minimalist: the magnolia walls are bare and the round, wooden tables are not dressed. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though. It suits the place: it’s a casual restaurant designed to appeal to families.

Upon arrival, I was surprised by how busy it was for a Wednesday evening, but it’s par for the course of a restaurant’s honeymoon period. In the main, the members of staff were attentive, although there was a slightly longer-than-average wait between courses. It was nothing to shout about, and I’ll put it down to teething problems and give them the benefit of the doubt. 

There’s a large menu, half of which is tapas dishes, the other half made up of pizza and pasta options. I didn’t quite know which angle to take: I was curious to try the tapas, but the freshly made pizzas caught my eye. I’m not a fan of pizza, it generally doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest, but on this particular night I was just in the mood.

I did, however, order a starter from the Cicchetti menu: croquettes di tonno – that’s tuna croquettes to you and I. They were nice enough, but they were a little bit dry. There was no dip to accompany them, which didn’t help. They weren’t particularly well presented either; they were just thrown into the middle of an empty plate, with no garnish, and lay there looking rather lost. And although tapas dishes are purposely small, for £6.50, a third croquette wouldn’t hurt. 

Croquettes di tonno

My friend’s starter looked much better. It was giant arancini - or the singular, arancino - stuffed with mushrooms and truffle oil. It looked delicious, and was better value at just £4. Still, I’m all about trying new dishes that I haven’t had elsewhere. 

White truffle and mushroom arancino

My main course was much more exciting. I had the Monte pizza, which was topped with pan fried wild mushroom, garlic, fresh sausage, broccoli spears and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil – all my favourite ingredients! The sourdough base was thin without being too crispy, perfect. They were generous with the toppings; the chunky pieces of sausage and the grilled mushrooms were extremely tasty, and the broccoli added another dimension of colour, flavour and texture. I didn’t expect broccoli to work on a pizza, but it does, although it does make slicing through it a little more difficult. It was fresh and colourful, a feast for the eyes as well as the palate. 

I’m one of those people who insist on eating pizza with a knife and fork. Cue controversy. I know it’s not the proper Italian way, but if I can avoid eating with my hands when I’m out, then I will.

Monte pizza

After we’d eaten our main courses, I had to ask to see a dessert menu. The waiting staff appeared to get lost among the hustle and bustle. Normally, after ten minutes or so, I’d give up on dessert and ask for the bill. On this occasion, I put it down to teething problems again. They were equally as slow when it came to providing the bill. For a brand new restaurant, however, the staff should be out to excel.

The dessert menu was fairly standard, not very exciting. There was only one choice that leapt off the page towards me – the Rocky Road Cheesecake. It’s supplied by Slattery’s, so excellence was inevitable. That said, I’d much prefer Mezzaluna to make their own desserts rather than buy in somebody else’s. It makes me question whether anything on the dessert menu is freshly made in house, or if they’re all just delivered and shoved in the fridge. 

The Rocky Road Cheesecake was spectacular. A New York style vanilla cheesecake on a sweet biscuit base, topped with a conglomeration of confectionery: Jaffa cakes, Oreos, Rolos, Maltesers, chunks of fudge, marshmallows and those white chocolate discs disks plucked straight from the school tuck shop. Served with sticky chocolate fudge sauce, it was sensational. Whilst it was certainly one of my favourites, it was, however, very stodgy. It had the texture of a baked cheesecake that had been subsequently refrigerated for slightly too long. The fudge sauce was slightly too thick and gooey. I struggled to finish it (yes, really), but, like a trouper, I managed. I’m a cheesecake fiend, I’ve had hundreds upon hundreds of them, so I can’t help but be a little bit picky.

Rocky Road Cheesecake

Mezzaluna is a welcome addition to Whitefield’s restaurant scene, offering a more relaxed and casual dining experience. It’s perfectly suited to families, their niche market, and is certainly much more affordable than many of the other new builds. It’s also nice to have an independent pizzeria beyond the mediocre chains such as Pizza Hut and Pizza Express. The food was delicious, and although the interior is warm, it could do with a little more character. If they people to keep flocking in after the honeymoon period is over, the service needs to improve a tad. 

The menu can be found on the restaurant's Facebook page.