Popolo, Restaurant

The ingredients of the pizza margarita are good -not homemade- but the execution unfortunately not so good. The pizza is baked in a gas stone oven through a flame from the top of the oven. The heat is from above while the bottom of stone is not hot enough for a consistent and equal baking process. As a result, the pizza is either overcooked, i.e. burned, or undercooked.

After we got the burned pizza, we asked the friendly French owner, then he directly offered to cook a new pizza. However, he said that the burned (black dough) was normal and he “has seen it in Italy” himself. Well, we don’t like burned. Then the new pizza came and it was this time unfortunately undercooked: the tomato sauce from the can and mozzarella was not hot, while the dough was a bit chewy. I recognize the taste of tomato sauce straight from the can without heating it, not per se bad. The owner warned us in advance about this might happen. We felt burdened to complain again, so we ate it. When we looked around at other pizza’s, we saw a few burned and some good (?) or undercooked, there was no consistency. Again, the ingredients are good but the execution not.

The staff/owner is friendly, the interior is beautiful and the vibe is good, so if you find this more important than a good cooked pizza, than this is the place for you. If you primarily go here for the pizza, I wouldn’t recommend it. The drinks are overpriced, e.g. 55.000kip for a 1.5 liter pitcher of beer. And the price of the pizza margarita is 50.000 according to the menu, but when we got the bill it was 55.000kip, maybe an error in the registering “system”?

This is a 1-time experience, so we maybe have to give it another chance?