Pizza the action

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Pizza the action

Tony Benjamin gets down and dirty in pursuit of the perfect pizza.

If you like getting stuck into a bit of proper cooking, then pizza making has to appeal. Not just for the ‘secret recipe’ mystique about the tomato sauce and sourcing some obscure salami, there’s also that whole hands-on physical thing of making the base. Ever since getting a ‘pizza stone’ for Christmas (a large round tile that goes in the oven to cook pizzas on), I’ve been getting steadily more ambitious, seeking out the proper, super-fine Typo 00 flour, experimenting with new sauces and herbs and generally doing the best I can without a mama from Napoli to put me right. But it had been that pulling out of the dough that flummoxed me – I just couldn’t get a good, thin base without ripping it all up, and as for tossing it into the air… I figured I needed a bit of training and a lot more confidence, so when I heard that The Hill in Cotham was relaunching and making a big fuss about their homemade pizzas, I saw my opportunity to kill two birds with one (pizza) stone.

They’ve done a good job on The Hill, turning it from a fairly dingy and blokeish ‘sports bar’ into a brighter place with retro-60s décor and a nicely open feel. It’s a conscious move, according to new manager Nick Tyrrell, to make the place more welcoming to female customers and, since reopening in mid-January, early signs are that it’s working. But one feature remains happily unchanged: the red painted stone pizza oven in the corner of the bar with custodian Ryan Hardman beavering away in front of it.

He’s a nice chap and completely unfazed by my request to get in there and pummel the dough. His only stipulation is that we first of all mix up a new batch, weighing and pouring yeast, salt, sugar, flour, oil and water into a massive food processor out the back. It’s a job he does most days – each batch makes some 57 pizzas and they sell around 80 a day. On two-for-one Tuesday, however, sales inevitably rocket and Ryan can find himself making up to 180 pizzas before closing time.

We leave the dough hooks churning the mix – it’ll take at least 20 minutes to get to the proper consistency – and do that Blue Peter ‘here’s one I prepared earlier’ thing. Under the counter there are drawers where neat little domes of dough sit waiting to be made into bases and I try to follow Ryan’s expert hands as I pull, turn and stretch my doughball into the even circle he’s achieving. It’s important, I learn, to keep a ring of crust around the edges while the middle has to be as thin as possible without actually tearing. I’m turning, pulling and pinching just like he shows me but something ragged is emerging, a map of Africa perhaps, with the beginnings of holes for lakes. I guess if I had accumulated three years of experience in Pizza Hut, Pizza Express and The Hill like him, I might come a bit closer to getting it – as it is I’m grateful that Ryan’s deft fingers can close up those apertures and leave me with something fit for tossing. And that’s what happens next, that satisfying whirl of dough into the air that actually lands back on my waiting hands and, after a couple more passes, is ready for topping and shovelling into the oven. By the time it emerges all crisp and tasty it looks – to my biased eyes, anyway – almost as convincing as Ryan’s near-perfect efforts. He’s generous in his praise but we both know I need a lot more practice. I make a silent vow, however, to dump the rolling pin and strive to become the tosser I know I deserve to be!