[2023 Edit] We have revisited Pizza Strada in January 2023 – almost 4 years after this blog post. You can find our newest review of Pizza Strada here!
We originally weren’t supposed to go to Pizza Strada. We had plans to eat omurice at Edoya in Minato but when we arrived at 6pm on a Sunday, they informed us that they were full and were no longer taking anymore guests. We were a bit disappointed as they don’t take reservations but then I remembered Pizza Strada was a 1 minute walk away! I had read about Pizza Strada in an article before and it was on my wish list to try.
We walked over and our hearts sank because they asked if we had reservations. When we said we didn’t they asked if we would be OK sitting at the counter. This turned out to be the best seat in the house as we got to watch the chef make our pizza and we could feel the heat from the wood fire stove on our faces. Here is a picture of the chef in front of us cooking:
THE FOOD
We started off with the fried gnocchi. These came out super hot. You can see from the picture above that they’re tossed in sea salt and it was a nice addition. The insides of the gnocchi were tender and soft. We were dining with a friend of mine and this dish went quickly.
The first pizza to arrive was the Romana. It’s amazing to watch the chef put together a pizza quickly in front of our eyes, have it go in the oven for 50 seconds (we timed it) and viola! the above image is what we get served to us.
The olives! Oh the olives on this pizza were so good. They were quite generous with the amount and I have to give them full props for that. The pizza sauce was tart and didn’t have pieces of San Marzano tomatoes. This was a smoother sauce rather than chunky bits of tomatoes. It was a delicious sauce and all the ingredients were of high quality. They didn’t skimp out on the cheese or anchovies.
The second pizza we ordered was the Diavola. The pepperoni in this dish is what sold it for me. It added a lot of flavor and complemented the other pizza toppings (mozzarella cheese, olives, Italian peperoncino, tomato sauce).
Both pizzas stood out to us because of how good the crust was. It wasn’t an overwhelming amount of dough in your mouth which is one of the reasons I don’t like crust. Rather, this crust was light and airy. If you watch the chef, you can see he kneads air into the crust to create that perfect puffiness.
OVERALL
Pizza Strada has a full English menu and we noticed that more than half the diners in the restaurants were foreigners. It would make sense though because the restaurant is located in an area of Tokyo with a lot of government embassies. The service is very accommodating – we saw a woman do a very complicated group order in English and the server did his best to make sure she was well looked after.
A tip we have is that we felt that one pizza per person is the right amount to order. We split the gnocchi and two pizzas between 3 adults and felt that another pizza would’ve been the best choice. It’s about 1500 – 1800 yen per pizza and the gnocchi is about 600 yen.
[…] done a review of Pizza Strada in Tokyo and now we’re back with a review of the Seirinkan which most people might know from […]
[…] spent 8 days in March 2018 in Japan and had an absolute blast and ate a lot of pizza. While it was a ton of fun and we’re wishing we could go back soon, we’re felt we […]
[…] done a review of Pizza Strada in Tokyo and now we’re back with a review of the Seirinkan which most people might know from […]
[…] We went to Sant-AnGelo (サンタアンジェロ) for our last meal in Osaka before we headed off to Takayama. The address is: 5-1-60 Nanba, Chuo Ward, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture 542-0076. It can be tricky to find because it’s located in a mall called Namba City. Just walk past all the shops on the first floor to an area at the back where there’s a concentration of restaurants. And if you’re wondering if we’ve gone to other Italian places during this same trip, the answer is absolutely. […]