Datte Foco, Stoke Newington

Datte Foco
10 Stoke Newington Church Street
London N16 0LU

Date of Last Visit: Sunday, March 28

The Victims: Chris, Evelien, Seona

The Damage: £12 each?

The Background: Chris and Evelien have moved. This is a bummer because they used to be right down the street from me. But now they're "all the way up" in Highbury. And somehow, they convince me that Stoke Newington is a short walk from them. I think to myself, "That can't be possible. Highbury is NOT close to Kingsland Road, and I know I've taken the bus up Kingsland Road before to get to Stokey." But no, "It will be a nice walk," they tell me.

So I walk to Highbury to pick up Chris, Evelien, and toddling Seona. And then we walk. And walk. And walk some more. Until we get to the eastern end of Stoke Newington Church Street, where we find Datte Foco. Full disclosure: My friends–Chris & Evelien and others–are friends with the owners of Datte Foco.

It's good that we did all that walking though because now we're STARVING. (And Seona is exhausted. She sleeps through our entire visit, rising only at the end to demolish a slice or two.)

We put in a few requests, but otherwise, we get an assortment of everything. And it's all so different. The courgette pizza is light and summery. The spicy sausage has a good kick to it. I pass on anything with mushrooms on it, and Chris happily polishes off anything I leave behind. We fight over the that last spicy sausage slice and end up dividing it into pieces.

Datte Foco is small and simple. The dining room is bare and basic. There's free wireless. And tiramisu. As we're sitting there, a few people come in with their laptops, load up on pizza (and tiramisu) and happily while away the afternoon.

Owner Herbie emailed me a few weeks ago and told me…

As I mentioned to you then, my teacher [from Rome] did come up to London to check
our place out and the pizza! Of course he gave me a few tips to make it
better, the biggest change is that he found my pizza a little to high!
So from last week the pizza has lost about 20% of it's weight! Much
thinner, but always crisp outside and soft inside…

So the pizza I had is not the pizza you'll have. But you should go and decide for yourself. Datte Foco is inexpensive and neighborhood-y and during our visit, the pizza choice was wide and varied. I like variety. 

The Verdict: Go.