Bad Boy Pizzeria, Bethnal Green, food review: ‘One for the die-hard pie fans’
Bad Boy Pizzeria on Bethnal Green Road. Photograph: courtesy Bad Boy Pizzeria Society
What makes these boys ‘bad’? I wonder. Grand larceny? Familial neglect? Harbouring weapons of mass destruction?
Whatever it is, these four friends created a society in antithesis of standard university life in Southampton, enthused by a local bar offering free pizza with every pint.
Discounted student meals, international tours, pizza parties, pop-ups and local delivery services followed.
Despite being miles away from their Italian or New York culinary inspirations, they now have locations in London Bridge, Seven Dials, and Bethnal Green Road.
The appetite for pies with zippy, cartoonish branding has clearly not abated.
The space looks at first like a very upmarket takeaway, with the oven flaming away behind a lovely red-tiled bar and plastic protective screen. But slide along the passageway and a squat catacomb-like room of tables and green leather-cushioned booths stretches beyond.
The four ‘bad boys’ have a shtick: crispy, 18-inch, New York-style pies, served with a range of inventive sides and some cool beverages. Give the people what they want!
‘Zippy’ branding. Photograph: courtesy Bad Boy Pizzeria Society
The crispiness is satisfying under our clamping gnashers, and everything is so dusted in parmesan that it seems to fill the air around us like candyfloss wisps.
The cheese pizza – one of two available by the slice – is simple but flaked with fresh ingredients.
The other slice is the vodka pie. Vodka sauce adds a depth and subtle warmth that fulfils all our thick, boozy, mozzarella-y, tomato-y dreams.
Mark’s Pep is the 18-inch beast we are recommended: a pepperoni spin with shallots, basil and a hot honey sauce flecking it like globules in a lava lamp. So far, so good.
It’s the sides that really set this joint apart from other dough-slingers in the area.
A wide oval of Caesar salad with shredded breadcrumbs makes me wonder why we ever risk our fillings on croutons. Honking of parmesan and anchovies, this salad does not need to be so gargantuan nor so rich for a pizza place. Although gee, am I glad it is.
A carbonara supplì is a stranger clump. It’s like a giant arancini made of pasta and panko, and it is again crested with parmesan like snow on a mountaintop. The texture is like a ball of deep-fried worms, but the taste is more a cheesy heart of mac and cheese.
The red-tiled counter. Photograph: courtesy Bad Boy Pizzeria Society
Cheesecake is the only dessert, and the booze options are simple: cans of white or red wine, a few beers, along with a local one from Pretty Decent Beer Co, which is… you’ve guessed it.
The zero-alcohol options are a bit pitiful, but the ‘adult pop’ keeps the booming student feeling palpable.
We were so full we couldn’t even fathom the cheesecake, and this exposes an ideological issue with the ‘everything is better shared’ ethos.
The most expensive 18-inch pie is £28, which between two or even three is a great idea, and a cracking option for cash-strapped students.
But what if a difficult Sebastian in your party of 40-year-olds wants the white pie? Or, God forbid, is vegan?
Does he mournfully make do with two of the only pizzas available by the slice, which contain cheese and meat? Or does he plump for a whole 18-incher to himself and stink up the Tube on the way back home?
The menu is still in early days at the new outpost, but in a world of coeliacs, coriander aversion and plain pickiness, is sharing always best?
The place feels more like a nicely decorated bunker, with greasy floors from all the dough and flying cheese, and toilets with ominously cool graffiti. Hot, heaving, cacophonous and a little manic.
It’s for the die-hard pie aficionados, or those wanting a cost-effective refuel before a long evening further down Bethnal Green Road.
Or maybe I’m just too old and pedantic? It’s been said before.