Franco Manca

Franco Manca has grown from a single Brixton Market stall into a chain with branches across London, from Covent Garden to Islington, Baker Street to Bishopsgate, and the format has stayed remarkably consistent throughout that expansion: sourdough pizza, proved for 24 hours, kept deliberately simple.

The dough is the actual point of the place. It has a proper chew and a slightly sour edge that separates it from the more common Neapolitan style found elsewhere in London, and it holds up well even when a pizza sits for a few minutes before you get to it. Toppings stay restrained, good tomato sauce, decent mozzarella, a short list of add-ons, rather than the more elaborate combinations some pizzerias now favour.

Prices remain genuinely low for London, individual pizzas mostly sit around the £14 mark, which is one of the reasons the chain has expanded as widely as it has. Salads and a short list of antipasti round out the menu, along with simple desserts like tiramisu.

The trade-off for that consistency is a lack of ambition. This is not a place chasing culinary attention, and the menu barely changes from branch to branch or, for regulars, from year to year. Some locations, particularly the busier ones near shopping centres, can feel more like a canteen than a restaurant, with quick turnarounds and limited atmosphere.

As a reliable, affordable pizza chain rather than a destination restaurant, it does exactly what it sets out to do, and does it consistently across a lot of branches, which is not a small achievement.

Founded by Giuseppe Mascoli and Bridget Hugo in 2008, the chain began with a single stall in Brixton Market and expanded steadily rather than chasing rapid growth, which likely explains why quality has held up better than at many pizza chains that scaled quickly. Several branches have held Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition over the years, a genuinely unusual achievement for a chain of this size. Branches do not typically take bookings for smaller groups, so a short wait at peak times, particularly Friday and Saturday evenings, is fairly normal.