Fatto a Mano Covent Garden — Restaurant in London

I stumbled across this place while looking for a quick dinner ahead of the theatre (I sound so fancy!), and was really pleased that I did. It was so nice to find an independent restaurant with so much character and really friendly and attentive staff.

I’m vegan and my partner only likes what he calls “basic” foods (pizza, burgers and chicken), and seeing that Fatto a Mano had THREE vegan pizza options on the menu, as well as plenty more on the sides / starters section, it fit the bill perfectly.

I was torn with so many options, but our server was very helpful helping me pick the white pizza (she let me know that the truffle flavour isn’t overwhelming as that was a worry for me, and she was right!). It was absolutely delicious, with lovely light flavours (though I might have liked something like balsamic drizzle or chili oil to cut across the lightness of it), and a very generous portion that I just about managed to finish. The pizza base itself was excellent too, very thin but able to hold the ample toppings, and the crust was so fluffy. I’m drooling thinking about it.

My partner went for a classic Margherita and was also very pleased with his choice. We didn’t have much to say to each other once the pizza came, which I think is always a good sign.

Long story short, excellent pizza and you should definitely come here if you’re trying to avoid the generic chain restaurants that you find in the West End.

Sorry, I forgot to take a picture until I was almost done so it’s just of a slice but it still looks...

Well having looked from Google reviews the place looked quite promising so we headed over here.

The initial staff member seemed friendly and welcoming, we sat down and began to look through the menu. We had seen an imaged posted by the company online and asked for it, between 2 of them they couldn’t work out which pizza it was- not the greatest start but they got their manager who said which one it was.

Thinking we were not that hungry and wanted just to try we purchased just one pizza and their “signature rosemary fries” - A terrible idea, they arrived, small and shrivelled, distinctive looking like I had seen them before and their taste, bland, cold in the centre and without nutrition- that’s right they were supermarket FROZEN chips. For an extortionate £5, (which the whole bag from Tesco must have cost £1.25). We asked the waitress who asked the Chef, who indeed confirmed they were frozen from a packet “and then they’re fried here”- Fried here! How amazing and so worth it for a tiny portion. Is it so difficult to buy a fresh potato, clean it, cut it and fry it? Laziness.

The pizza was alright, comparable with Franco Manca. What was further disappointing was the fact after we were clearly not happy with the fries, they just left us took the plate and never once came to us again, no check in to see how we found the pizza or drinks etc. Just labelled as bad customers and forgotten in the corner.

I will not...

Booking for 6 people to celebrate a 13th birthday @ 5pm, before a show. The restaurant was very busy, so the wait for our pizzas was a little longer than expected, but the birthday girl's pizza was missing! When it was mentioned to the waiter, he claimed we hadn't given him the order! When her buffalo mozzarella margarita eventually arrived, it was so sloppy it was almost impossible to cut. We spoke to another member of staff, who said 'no problem, removed her plate and placed an order another pizza. The second pizza was almost as sloppy as the first but slightly more edible. We were later told that it was sloppy because of high water content in the buffalo mozzarella. In my opinion, they were rushing to keep up with orders, so they didn't cook it for long enough! As a surprise we'd pre-arranged a birthday cake. As soon as we finished our meals the go-ahead was given to the staff for the cake to be brought up. After the 6th attempt of asking, the cake finally arrived unfortunately because they had taken so long, we only had enough time to sing happy birthday and the candles be blown out. Otherwise, the birthday girl would have missed the start of the evening performance of Matilda. Overall, this was an extremely disappointing...