10 STOKE NEWINGTON CHURCH STREET LONDON N16 0LU

Welcome to Datte Foco a Pizza and Love Joint! We are the first Roman Pizzeria in London where everything we do is actually Italian and not an imitation. The pizza tastes like real pizza and the pasta is not only fresh but 'al dente'!

Myself and my partner Neil have been best friends for many years and one day in 2007 we decided to leave our jobs in the City and to start our own Pizzeria. At first Neil wondered if there were not already too many Pizzerias in London for us to be successful, so I took him back to Rome for four days where I made him try several pizze 'al taglio'. By the end of which he was convinced he had never tasted anything like it back at home!

Once we were sure we wanted to do this our journey begun. I went back to Rome to live with my parents for about 9 months during which time I was able to work (assist is more like it) with one of the finest Pizzaioli there is , my Maestro Giuseppe Russo, who runs his great Pizzeria in Viale Carso, in the Prati area together with his wife Anna. I do feel terribly lucky for having been able to learn the art of pizza making from Giuseppe with his 20 years experience and also to have met his father Natale who had in turn taught his son how to make pizza. You can appreciate that in a city like Rome with hundreds of pizzerias not all of them are good let alone really good. Well the pizza at Giuseppe's is absolutely fantastic!

When the nine months were over I said good bye to parents, friends and country and made my return to London. With Neil we looked for the right place where to open our Pizzeria and I must admit finding the premises and then setting everything up was a lot more difficult than learning how to make pizza, maybe if not as difficult, definitely more stressful! Our motivation and hope to succeed in realising our dream eventually helped us in successfully opening to the public on the 12th December 2009!

Since our opening many things have happened but the most important thing is that after seven months we keep growing. Not everyone knows us yet, but those who do have enjoyed the experience of eating and drinking at Datte Foco while listening to some great beats that Neil provides usually have come back for more!

Overall, I would like to explain briefly what drives me in putting all my energies in making Datte Foco successful. Several years ago, I took S, my girlfriend at the time, to eat out at a nice restaurant here in London to celebrate our anniversary. We had a starter and a steak with a glass of wine and one of Champagne (I was riding my motorbike that night so could not have more) and the bill came to £120. A month later, I went to Rome to celebrate my father's birthday. He took seven of us out to a restaurant where we ate better and more. We certainly drunk more, and when we got the bill guess to how much it came to? Yes, £120!!! Is it possible that good healthy food has to be so expensive in London? Regardless of how much rent costs good healthy food must be available to all without the need of re-mortgaging! Certainly good pizza should not be as expensive as it always has been in most of London. So here we are, doing our best to give you the best possible experience, good, tasty and healthy food in a pleasant easy going atmosphere at the most affordable value to all.

In any relationship there is a perfect line where both parties are perfectly happy; any move away from this point benefits one over the other making the relationship unfair.

We look forward to your company.

Herbie