Alfi: Neapolitan Pizza At Spitalfields Market

I was recently invited to visit Alfi in Spitalfields Market, a restaurant serving authentic Neapolitan pizza alongside a seasonal menu of Italian-inspired dishes, cocktails and mocktails. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but the first thing that caught my attention wasn't actually the food. It was the setting.

The music was fun but subdued, making it feel like somewhere you could meet friends for dinner without having to shout across the table, but equally somewhere that could work for a casual work dinner. There’s also a pool table, table tennis and foosball, which gives the place a slightly different energy. You can have dinner, a few drinks and then, rather than immediately heading home, challenge whoever you're with to a game.

It makes the whole experience feel a little less formal. You're not just there to eat and leave.

The service was also a genuine highlight. I think visiting a restaurant to review it can sometimes be slightly intimidating for the staff, and that can work both ways. You can end up being checked on constantly or having every dish explained to you in such detail that it starts to feel like you're attending a presentation rather than having dinner.

At Alfi, the conversations felt natural. We weren't constantly being interrupted, but the team were attentive and took us through the seasonal menu, explaining the dishes and the thinking behind them without overdoing it.

We started with cocktails and mocktails before moving on to the food.

I went for the Isola Bianca, made with a rum blend, coconut, pineapple, orange and lime. I absolutely loved this one. It was smooth and rounded, with the coconut and fruit making it incredibly easy to drink. The type of drink where you don't feel like it has any alcohol until, suddenly, it hits you with full force.

We also tried a mocktail called Brezza, made with guava, apple, lime, cucumber, coconut and blue curaçao. As you would expect from the ingredients, it was fresh and energising, and worked particularly well alongside the pizza later in the meal.

Starting with the Starters

The first dish was the Panzanella, made with red, green and yellow tomatoes, stracciatella and focaccia croutons.

I liked how fresh it felt. The different tomatoes brought slightly different flavours and textures, while the stracciatella made the dish more substantial without taking away from what was otherwise a very summery salad. The focaccia croutons also added some much-needed crunch.

Then came the beef carpaccio, topped with summer truffle and Parmigiano Reggiano. The beef was light and delicate, with the parmesan and truffle adding a little more depth. It was the sort of starter that doesn't need much else.

Then came what we were all really there for: the pizza.

The Pizza

A visit to a Neapolitan restaurant would feel incomplete without trying the pizzas, so we went for two of the newer combinations on the menu.

The first was Dom, made with fior di latte, friarelli, salsiccia, pancetta, pecorino and chilli.

This was definitely the more traditional of the two. The combination of sausage, pancetta and pecorino gave it plenty of saltiness, while the friarelli brought some bitterness and the chilli added a slight kick. It also uses a white base rather than tomato, which changes the whole balance of the pizza. The toppings become much more noticeable without the acidity of tomato sauce sitting underneath everything.

Then there was Nonna Cristina: gorgonzola, fior di latte, salsiccia, pear and truffle honey.

This was the pizza I was initially less sure about. It's not necessarily a combination I would normally order for myself, particularly with the pear and truffle honey, but it ended up being the one I kept going back to.

The thin crust was fire-oven baked, leaving that crisp, delicate layer around the edges, while the truffle honey added a light sweetness across the top. The pear worked surprisingly well with the gorgonzola, while the sausage brought the saltiness back into the dish.

It was a strange combination on paper, but once you were actually eating it, it made sense.

By this point, I was already struggling with how much food I had consumed. I'd recently rejoined the gym, so somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking that perhaps dessert could be skipped.

But after everything we'd just been served, I would have hated to miss the opportunity to try the desserts.

So, obviously, we ordered dessert.

There Is Always Room for Dessert

We tried the strawberry sorbet and Alfi's homemade tiramisu.

The strawberry sorbet arrived as two generous scoops and was already beginning to melt into the bowl. You could tell from the flavour that it was made with real fruit rather than being overly sweet or artificial, and after the pizza it was exactly what I needed. Fresh, cold and simple.

The tiramisu was completely different. Soft, wet and soaked through with its flavours, it had that comforting quality you want from a good tiramisu. There was nothing particularly complicated about it, which is probably what made it work. Sometimes a tiramisu doesn't need to be reinvented.

By the end of the evening, I was very full, had completely abandoned my earlier thoughts about being sensible and was wondering whether rejoining the gym had been a particularly bad decision.

But the evening at Alfi wasn't really just about the amount of food.

What I enjoyed most was how easy the whole thing felt. The food is obviously the centre of the experience, but the restaurant doesn't take itself too seriously. You can have a proper Neapolitan pizza, order a cocktail, spend time talking and then end up playing table tennis, pool, or making silly faces in their photobooth.

For a restaurant in Spitalfields, it feels like a nice change from the usual dinner format where the evening is essentially over as soon as the plates are cleared.

And, despite my best intentions, I would absolutely order the Nonna Cristina again. The gym can wait.