You cannot move for excellent pizza in London right now. A new wave of pub residents, slice shops, and sit-down parlours have transformed the city's mozzarella-slathered fast food scene. Yet, Bar Etna in Newington Green is utterly correct in assuming there is still room for more.
Ed McIlroy's Latest Venture
Not content with serving one of London's best burgers at his iconoclastic Finsbury Park gastroboozer The Plimsoll, Ed McIlroy is now coming for London slice supremacy. Working with Joe Beddia of Philadelphia's Pizzeria Beddia, once declared America's best pizza by Bon Apétit magazine, he stands more than a fighting chance.
Much like McIlroy's other excellent restaurant, Spanish-styled fish counter Tollington's, Bar Etna is an immediate vibe. There is a classy-but-fun bar up front, with Barbarella-worthy midcentury chrome lights, a big shiny bartop, and sparkling bottles on the shelves. It is a sleek 1960s Sicilian vino den that raises your cool factor by 10 points as soon as you step inside. Drop by for a £5 negroni while performatively reading some Nabokov.
The Restaurant Ambience
The restaurant itself is on a raised mezzanine, with splashy canvases of assorted nudes and animals on moody wood panelled walls. It is at once welcoming and slightly intimidating, but smells great, and there is a satisfying mix of hot dates, chaotic families with sticky-pawed kids, and cackling mates on the tightly packed tables. Looks like we have got another cool new London Italian on our hands.
Simple and Delicious Menu
Those that cannot abide a lengthy menu will be charmed. At Bar Etna, the offering is beautifully simplistic. There is cheese, salad, cured meat, and focaccia alongside four pizzas, each sizeable enough to share between two. The cheese is currently a squidgy pecorino fresca made in Yorkshire by a Sardinian guy, served drenched in extra virgin olive oil and with fresh cracked pepper. We eat it greedily, as if it were a slice of birthday cake. The salad is a simple flourish of lettuce and a smattering of radish, but the killer touch is its potent fish sauce dressing, which elevates our greens to a state of cruciferous enlightenment.
Really, there are more than four pizzas, as all of them are customisable with mushroom, pepperoni, sausage, and anchovy, making for a much larger number of possibilities. We opt for the most untraditional of the lot, a curry pizza which is essentially saag paneer on a taut and torched base with an exactingly crisp bottom. It is properly spicy and pleasingly off-kilter, but next time I will be ordering the pizza with Calabrian chilli, greens, and Coolea cheese, and I am adding anchovies.
Overall Experience
Bar Etna is another spot-on Ed McIlroy banger. The vibe is a cooler-than-cool pizza parlour and wine bar. The food offers great pizza and surprisingly good starters. The drink list includes a big selection of volcanic Italian wines by the bottle, but just one choice of red or white by the glass. Fantastically, there is also Lambrusco by the glass and £5 negronis. Time Out tip: Bar Etna is situated on a freshly-anointed hipster strip of Green Lanes, which also takes in the newly-opened bistro-pub from the displaced Papi lads, The Golden Tooth. Tick off both in one night.
