Jim said we’re going to eat pizza at somewhere called Proven in Stone. Admit it, it’s a great name for a pizza gaff. The dough is proven and is cooked in a stone oven. It’s literally genius, as in literal and genius, and it makes me want to open a wine bar called Crushed in Bottle, or a pasta bar called Kneaded in Pan, though the latter does sound like a call for help at a retirement village. And then we get in his car from Yoxall and drive forty minutes to a small town called Stone and suddenly it makes sense. Silly me. Anyway, what idiot calls a town Stone? Especially one that hundreds of years later could home a pizza restaurant called Proven? They were asking for trouble.
Luckily it’s brilliant, but then it was always going to be. Jim knows his pizza almost as much as his dashingly handsome fourteen year old son Isaac, who has been with his dad to eat things proven in stone all over the country. Proven, in Stone, is his favourite of the lot, more than the ones in Birmingham and other less good cities. If only he’d been old enough to get to Poli I cry internally. His son, not Jim.
Now before I tell you about five pizzas of which only one I remember to picture, let’s get the two starters out of the way, if only because I have images of them. Neither are what I expected, and, honestly, neither are how they are supposed to be, and yet I loved them both. Jalapeno poppers come as large green chilli’s sliced in half with a piping of cream cheese, chilli, and chive down the centre, whacked through the pizza oven until they blister and drizzled with hot honey, in what I would say is an improvement on the traditional popper. And baba ganoush that is more muhammara; notionally aubergine but more ground walnuts, spice, and molasses. Absolutely delicious but also absolutely not baba ganoush, and yet still a must order to be scooped out of the bowl and onto that quite wonderful sourdough flatbread that is to turn up again in a matter of minutes under the cover of tomato, cheese, and a variety of toppings.
The pizza is great because the dough is great and they have sourced the ingredients better than a lot of restaurants that take themselves far more seriously. The cured meats are from Cobble Lane, the tuna on Sophie’s the best she said since Sicily. Between the five of us we have ones with venison on, one with goats cheese on, Sophie’s fishy one, and mine with the great pepperoni and loads of chilli. I forgot to take pictures because I was enjoying myself a lot, which makes me a better friend than food blogger, and also because I was drinking a pint of vino de terrano like Sam Allardyce, which makes me a better drunk than food blogger. It’s just really solid pizza, not life changing, but certainly very well made with a clear understanding that the Neapolitan style should be loose in the centre and not a soup on some bread. The bill is £167 between the five of us, three of whom are drinking, one is driving, and the other is too young to do either. It’s great, not somewhere I’d make a special trip to, but certainly would hunt out when I’m around the Staffs/Derbyshire border. And sometimes that’s all you need in life.
8/10
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