Jamie's Pizzeria, Oxford

Your Italian friend has already been here,” the head chef at Jamie’s new Pizzeria greeted me on arrival. “No way,” I told him. “I only told her about it yesterday.”

But then nothing gets in the way of Mariella Bliss and her quest to find the perfect pizza.

The Italian caterer, who hails from Naples, is never happy unless immersed in pasta dough and anyone lucky enough to attend her cookery classes in Tackley will know how delectable the finished product is.

But she despairs of us and our flimsy pizza imitations, trawling Oxfordshire to find the real deal, anything that replicates the original, and with Gennaro Contaldo at the helm nationally, a proper Italian from the Amalfi Coast, she hoped she might finally have struck gold, and short of breaking in, was going to be first in the queue to see if Oxford might have found its holy grail.

Having been there to interview Gennaro I knew how good the pizza was, but she was the real critic here, so what did she think, I asked him?

He shook his head and my heart sank: “She didn’t want our cheese mix, she only wanted mozzarella, and I hadn’t made one like that before so it took about three attempts to get it right,” he said as I held my breath, and then he grinned “but I think she loved it.”

But then that’s Italians for you. They are traditionalists, and their food has to be unadulterated with nothing added and nothing taken away.

Jamie Oliver ignored this obviously and locked himself away with Gennaro for two years to perfect his own version of the perfect pizza, settling on a version made with grated cheddar, grated mozzarella and fresh mozzarella, and personally as a pizza-loving Anglo Saxon I believe they have absolutely hit the nail on the head.

I texted Mariella. How was it?

“The best pizza in Oxford,” she replied immediately. “Thin, light but still soft and bubbly. I had the rocket one, but I asked just for mozzarella (no cheddar) on our margherita and it was delicious, although I did have to wait a while (no kidding). Never seen a dough like that in Oxford,” she continued. So there we are, all happy.

The pizzeria is totally separate to Jamie’s Italian, with its own entrance so you can’t chop and change the menus. There are five pizzas on the board (margherita, funghi, Oxford hot, white rocket and fiorentina) all under £10, a few starters, desserts and cocktails, some sides, and I have worked my way slowly through the menu over the last few weeks, dragging various friends and family there, who have all enjoyed it.

My favourites? The Oxford hot (fennel salami, Napoli forte salami, fresh chillies and oregano), whose ingredients really speak for themselves, the white rocket, whose luxurious toppings are subtle, juicy, piquant and fragrant and work beautifully and of course the margherita. And yes the sauce is rich, richer than normal with the Westcombe cheddar mix added, but it gave the pizzas a greater depth of flavour in my humble opinion.

Shovelled out of the oven baking hot, with fresh parmesan grated on top and melting as it reaches you, the dough is chewy, crusty, crunchy, crispy, with those little burnt bits where it gets too close to the top of the oven, mis-shapen, oily and marvellous.

Served with steak knives, they take some sawing.

The pizzas taste this good because the dough is left to rise overnight, a minimum of six hours Gennaro told me, any less and its not proven which is why you fill up so quickly otherwise, the yeast still proving in your stomach.

The people next to us complained there was too much crust and not enough filling, but that's the thing about pizza, we all have our personal preferences, and this way suits me just fine.

Accompanied by a Bibb salad, which comes with thinly sliced radishes, dressing, avocado and big crunchy lettuce leaves, it was perfect.

So is there a but? Not really, except that by placing it in the basement of Jamie’s on the way to Gloucester Green and giving it its own front door, no one knows it’s there. Introduced to cater for the despondent diners who arrived at Jamie’s Italian in George Street under the impression that it serves pizza, the dark, windowless room, has its own open pizza kitchen where you can watch the fun going on.

But it’s entrance is perplexing, the door looking like a tradesmen's entrance rather than a welcoming opening to a new restaurant. But don’t be put off! Brave the door and give it a go. There’s a new pizzeria in town, and its right up there with the big timers.

Jamie's Pizzeria, 24-26 George Street, Oxford 
01865 838383 jamieoliver.com

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