‘Sometimes the drudgery of 9 to 5 makes me long for the simpler times of serfdom’, I commented to my colleague on the way to lunch at Maverick. His response? Gales of disbelieving laughter. But quite honestly, wouldn’t it be better? You wouldn’t have to commute, you knew who was boss, there was no need to be competitive and HMRC didn’t exist. There were no mid-year performance reviews. On the downside, there was also no pizza.
Maverick is a surprisingly hipster joint a stone’s throw away from HRH QE2’s main gaff and deep in the thronging hell commonly known as Victoria. The décor is minimalist, with some very cool tiled tables in a light and airy space that’s split into two. The drinks are served in the omniscient mason jars. The menu is very simple; six starters/sides, seven pizzas, one salad and one soup. You’d think that would mean that the food would come out all at once, but no, there’s always one and of the 11 pizzas, one came out 10 minutes after the others, which never fails to irritate me when eating out.
I ordered the Parma, which was delicious. Thin slices of Parma ham (I highly doubt it was freshly sliced as it was suspiciously packet-uniform), dobs of mozzarella, peppery rocket and Parmesan. The amount of Parmesan was slightly overwhelming, but I won’t ever truly complain about too much cheese. Others had the Capra, which was piled with goats cheese and balanced with pomegranate drizzle or the Diavola, which had lots of excellent salty, fatty slithers of salami. Question; why have a Marinara and a Margherita on the menu? Aside from slight differences in the sauce it’s the same pizza, why not give the veggies more exciting options?
I ate the whole thing. The base was excellent, the right amount of chewy and oven-kissed crispy with a delightful yeasty tang. The only real downer was confusion over the bill, when a £10 lunch special doesn’t include gratuity then confusion will reign. However, I would go back as it’s one of the few places in Victoria where the food isn’t mass produced.
Lunch (1 x pizza, 1 x soft drink + gratuity) = £11.25.
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