My apologies for the poor photographs in advance, it has been a long time since I have been able to review an eatery and I have somewhat lost the habit of photographing the goods as it were. However, Pizza Punks in Newcastle has to be one of the more novel pizza places I have had the pleasure of visiting. I ordered two pizzas, the margherita, of course, and a mushroom and truffle pizza, both of which were absolutely splendid. The former is pictured below.
The margherita, as you will know, if the original pizza and by far, in this reviewer’s opinion, the best. The old ones really are the best, one might say. The mozzarella was high quality and cut in large slices rather than being grated, which grates me in turn. The ‘red sauce’ spoken of in the menu tasted like San Marzano sauce but I may be wrong. There was, regrettably, no basil as advertised on the menu, but I can forgive Pizza Punks for this anarchic decision.
The truffle mushroom pizza, pictured above, contained just truffle mushrooms, white sauce and garlic & rosemary potatoes, sliced very finely indeed. It also featured some excellent mozzarella slices again, likely sliced from a larger block of dried mozzarella, which tends to make the best pizza cheese. Now the flavour here was beautifully balanced – it is ludicrously easy to overdo the truffle and overpower your customer but Pizza Punks stayed well within the status quo on this occasion.
Turning to more conventional British pizza habits, a pepperoni was ordered. This one had a little extra on it in the form of some Nduja spicy sausage, which added a not too unpleasant kick. The basil on this pizza was also a welcome addition by comparison to my own pizza. Most of the time I am wary of processed pork but this was a special pizza so I made an exception. Delicious, quite spicy but overall well balanced.
The final pizza I shall mention which was ordered was the above aberration, the hamburger pizza. Now, before you unsubscribe, know this: I did not order it! In its defence, the pizza did taste exactly like a cheese burger. Why you would want one food to taste like another is beyond me. I will not dignify this pizza with a serious review but I think it is about time I spoke about the dough. Pizza Punks utilises a beautiful Neapolitan style pizza dough which is a lot more fluffy than the typical roman pizza dough which is flat and typically more robust in texture. The dough at Pizza Punks was superb, no question about it, as you can see from the above photographs.
See the menu above.
Overall, I am very impressed with this delightful novel pizzeria. Some of the pizzas are less acceptable than others but otherwise the concept is good, the quality is high and the ingredients are excellent.