Dough Pizza Kitchen

High Street, Northern Quarter, Manchester

Dough Pizza Kitchen is celebrating ten years of being cheesy in the heart of the Northern Quarter. It’s an independent Italian restaurant and pizzeria with an emphasis on inclusivity. The extensive menu is full of classic dishes and quirky pizzas, many of which can be adapted to meet any dietary requirements, with gluten free, dairy free, vegetarian and vegan options available.

It’s a rustic and basic interior set up for casual, daytime dining. The staff are friendly enough but the service could do with improvement – more on that later.

The starter selection is rather basic. There’s a host of Italian favourites which are perhaps best suited to sharing: garlic breads, bruschetta, baked camembert and dough balls, as well as meat and vegetarian platters.

Having perused the menu several times before my visit, I knew from the offset that I had to try one of their delicious-sounding desserts, so to ensure I had room, myself and my friend just shared a garlic bread. It’s a 10-inch pizza bread, demonstrating the ultra-thin, super-crispy bases which are used. For me, it was a little too thin and crispy, on the cusp of being crunchy. You need a tiny bit of floppiness in the middle. There was a generous layer of tomato but not quite enough garlic for my liking.

Tomato Garlic Bread

The choice for main course was overwhelming. There’s a huge selection of pizzas, including a section of the menu dedicated to ‘Modern Pizza’, with toppings including Full English Breakfast, BBQ Pulled Pork and Chicken Balti. They all sound intriguing and delicious. It’s not very often I’m drawn in by pizza, but I’d definitely like to give one of these a try.

However, there was something even more intriguing which caught my eye: White Chocolate Risotto. The title of the dish is slightly misleading, as the chocolate is only very subtle and certainly doesn’t qualify as a main ingredient. Still, I suppose the point of the name is to catch your eye, and it certainly does. Pieces of lemon torn roast chicken, smoked pancetta and fresh spinach were folded through the creamy risotto, with white chocolate droplets delicately placed on the top, melting into the dish.

White Chocolate Risotto

It shouldn’t work, but it did. In principle, I don’t agree with combining savoury and sweet, firmly believing they should be kept to two separate courses. However, this little hint of white chocolate provided added a rich, creamy taste to the risotto without it being sweet. It contrasted perfectly with the lemon chicken and the saltiness of the pancetta.

My friend had the Rustica Pizza: sun-blushed tomatoes, mozzarella, rocket and parmesan, with added prosciutto. The base was thin, crispy and light and there was plenty of topping. It was exactly how I’d like a pizza to be.

Rustica Pizza

The quality of the food was let down by the painfully slow service. It took long enough for our garlic bread to arrive, but the length of time we had to wait for our main courses was beyond a joke. I had to ask after our food twice before it arrived. On the second occasion, I pointed out to our waiter that we’d been seated for a whole hour, during which time we’d only had a garlic bread. He said it was his fault, as the plate for the garlic bread was left on the table for ages after we’d finished, so he hadn’t told the kitchen to start preparing our mains. Granted, he apologised, but he seemed to think that this was acceptable. They could have knocked something off the bill or even offered us a complementary drink, given that neither of us were drinking alcohol, but all we got was ‘it’ll be with you shortly, they’re rushing it through now’.

Despite the wait, I couldn’t resist dessert. Dough offers something a little bit different to your run-of-the-mill selection. There’s a Triple Chocolate Brownie, an Orange and Almond Cake and Peanut Butter Krispie Bites.

The one that stole my heart was the Triple Chocolate Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich: three chocolate oat cookies stacked with scoops of vanilla ice cream and topped off with fresh berries. This was a spectacular dessert and outstandingly amazing value, priced at just £4.75.

Triple Chocolate Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich

The cookies were stacked with dairy free vanilla ice cream. I enquired as to whether it would be possible for it to be made with regular ice cream. After all, they pride themselves on their ice cream cabinet, with quirky flavours such as birthday cake. However, I was told that the kitchen only has dairy free ice cream, with all other flavours prepared at the bar. Our waiter reluctantly offered to prepare my dessert at the bar with regular ice cream, but I couldn’t be bothered asking questions so I just accepted it.

When it comes to the ominous question of whether or not I’d return, I’m stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. The food was delicious and there are loads of different pizzas I want to try, but the exceptionally slow service is off-putting. Perhaps this explains why a central Northern Quarter restaurant wasn’t packed out on a bustling summer Saturday afternoon.

Website: http://doughpizzakitchen.co.uk/