Amore Pizza is in Moseley via the now familiar route of street food enterprise to bricks and mortar business. I’d eaten it several times before and had an idea of what to expect before I walked into the tiny bleached white space on St Mary’s Row that’s part Puglia and part Santorini in appearance. Everyone rates Alex’s pizza. Everyone. The attention to detail was there from the off with the dough. A restaurant was the obvious way to go.

It’s busy. So busy that they struggle to fit me in when I walk past with no reservation. It’s BYOB at present, with a menu that extends way past just pizza. There’s lasagnes, gnocchis, bruschetta’s, and salads, each coming out of a kitchen that wouldn’t be out of place in studio flat.

I’m going to tell you to stick to the pizza. The gnocchi has more than the suspicion of straight out of a bag and into a fryer, in a sauce that needs the salt shaker on the table, which is fine if you manage expectations. And similar with the crostini; the mushrooms in cream sauce would benefit from the cream being heavily reduced, whilst a fennel sausage version was pleasant enough but needed more ‘nduja punch in the tomato sauce.

But the pizza. Christ the pizza is good. The dough has a slightly lactic top note, blistered and misshapen. Ever-so-slightly soupy, it feels like Rudy’s when they first took on the pizza world in Manchester. Mine has fat strips of salami and chillies, but really any will shine here when the basics are done so well.

Most of all I admire the confidence. Birmingham has great pizza options. Of a similar style, Poli sit a mile up the road (and arguably in a league of their own), whilst Smoke & Ash, Otto, and Baked in Brick are two miles in the opposite way. Laghis with their more Roman style, the slice shop of Peacer, and Rudy’s just about everywhere. And still they’ve come in to a competitive part of town with a product that stands up to just about all the competition. The bill was £40 with a couple of soft drinks, the service friendly and charming throughout. I can see it doing extremely well in Moseley.

8/10

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