Dinner / £ / 7/10

Since reviewing Baba Dough I wanted to explore other pizza options, Slice and Brew is on my list but a dinner with friends in February proved the perfect occasion to try Rudy’s. It was the first sunny day of the year and in the afternoon you barely needed a jacket, fast forward to early evening it was quickly getting colder. Nottingham City Centre didn’t seem to have got the memo though – arriving at 19.15 parts of town were a bit like a zoo. If zoo’s are full of drunk, half naked people.

Rudy’s was a slice of the city in restaurant form, busy, bustling, couples, friends, families, casual diners and one customer in a leather jumpsuit. The diversity of customers and tables had an energy you don’t get in more expensive restaurants and should be celebrated.

The pizzeria is in the home of the old French Connection shop – a grand structure on a street that would rival Manchester and London for beautiful buildings neighbouring the equally handsome Delilah Fine Foods (a deli which the city should NEVER let close). Despite the high ceilings and massive space the restaurant was warm, welcoming and not ear bleedingly noisy (cough, cough Cosy Club).

The menu is a tight selection of Starters (mainly antipasti), Pizza and desserts. You can have a salad or a dip but it reminded me of Baba Dough in its concise focus so I was excited. To start we ordered the ‘Campana’ between 4 of us and I couldn’t resist ordering the ‘Bowl of Salted Crisps’. The Campana was beautifully presented and the meats and cheese were full of flavour. They weren’t fridge cold and the bread had been toasted and oiled to add to the flavour. I would go back for it. My choice…. was a bowl of crisps, I am not sure what I expected but when it arrived I felt disappointed. I think it might have been because I expected there to be something ‘special’ about them but it looked like someone had upended a bag of Walkers (that had been in a sweaty school bag all day) into a bowl. It definitely took the Ronseal approach so I clocked it up to experience.

Now for the pizza, the star of the show and a brief disclaimer before we continue. Rudy’s (like Pizzamisu) serve Neopolitan pizzas. Famous for charred spots of pillowy dough around the edge and a very thin centre. Neopolitan pizzas are definitely having a moment but I prefer a crisper base and more structural integrity so you can pick a slice up in one hand and eat it. That isn’t the case here – cutlery is needed.

The pizzas arrived and there was that feeling again – underwhelm. The table buzzed with the excitement of food being delivered but on closer inspection everything was missing a bit of ‘care’. There were large parts of the pizza without toppings and cheese. I don’t expect my pizza to look like an Asda ‘Build your own Vesuvius mountain of mozzarella and hotdog slices’ but I am not here for a game of ‘Hunt the topping’ either.

The pizzas themselves tasted great, even more so when liberally covered in the hot honey and aioli we had ordered as sides. The bases had a deep flavour and were well seasoned and the toppings worked really well together even if they were a little stingy. The dough had the trademark black bubbles but none of the acrid burnt dough taste that can sometimes come with them.

We finished with some ice cream and a tiramisu which were functional. A plea to all makers of tiramisu – please god add more bloody marsala wine and coffee, without both it is just a crap jelly-less trifle. We left and walked up Victoria Street to get a taxi home, the earlier revellers were showing signs of fatigue as we passed a girl whose nipple was being covered by her friends hand as she wept in a doorway. I reminded myself that a bit of a care-less pizza was in no way the worse fate to suffer on a night out in Nottingham.