La Barca Pizzeria, London

La Barca is a pizza takeaway in Stoke Newington, London. Many believe that in the area, there are only really 2 competing pizza takeaways: La Barca and Il Bacio (confusingly with quite similar names). Although Il Bacio is considered by many the best, La Barca firmly holds the underdog status and many 'in the know' rate it more highly. Upon many recommendations we gave it a go one night and although good, didn't feel it lived up to the hype and were disappointed.

The selection they have is vast and ranges through the classics like an American hot or Hawaiian to variations on the classics using a limited array of ingredients. They never get overly adventurous so you can expect your favourites to be on the menu. The price range varies from £5 upwards for a small pizza and to £13 for the largest size (15 inch). They also offer various special deals on combined purchases but sadly don't seem to offer a reduction on collection. Orders over £10 have free delivery but they only deliver to a limited amount of postcodes.

The pizzas are usually generously topped and the ingredients used were on the whole pretty good although I've had a lot fresher at other places. They also tended to be a little on the dry side and they go for small and numerous rather than large, juicy toppings. The pizza base was very good and light and airy but crispy on the outside. Our main problem was that we found their pizzas to be really greasy making us feel sickly the following day. This wasn't just on the meat pizza we ordered but also on the veg only one.

Delivery time was around 45 minutes which is about average for this area (although they are only 5 minutes from where we had it delivered to). The pizza arrived hot and the delivery driver was friendly enough and polite. They deliver from 3pm up until around 11pm.

I think maybe the weight of expectation is what has done for this place. We had heard so many great things and it just didn't live up to it. Compared to the high street pizza chains, for freshness and ingredients this betters them by a long way but just didn't meet our expectation due to the greasiness.