The Italian term for ‘oven baked’. We bake our sourdough pizzas in big beautiful Dragon ovens.

An enzyme that’s central to sourdough science. Amylase lives in flour, and breaks down the starches of flour into sugar ready for fermentation.

When a slice is loaded with toppings and cheese, things can get slippery. An avalanche – in pizza land – is when the toppings slide off the base. We recommend the hold and fold technique to prevent disaster.

It’s how we cook our pizzas. At a temperature of 400°C, to be precise.

Our hometown. The first place to taste our sourdough pizzas. Bruton was where our original Land Rover Defender became a mobile pizza oven. Which is still available to hire.

As in the cheese, not the bull. Buffalo mozzarella is a classic topping in the USA. We source our cheese from local producers who keep cows, not buffalos, so you won’t find it on our pizzas. Our choice of cheese is a little less tangy.

The foundation of any great pizza. Also the best bit (up for debate). Crusts come in all shapes and sizes. We make them Neapolitan-style, billowy and soft with a bit of chew.

The secret to a good crumb is… a secret. Just joking. It’s actually a little bit of science and the hardest thing about making incredible pizza. A lot goes into a cracking crust, but it all starts with the structure of the dough. The more open the cell structure, the more open the crumb. If you’re a sourdough geek (guilty) then you can read more HERE!

A simple mix of sourdough starter, flour, water, and a pinch of salt. That’s our recipe. As it should be.

We decided to take delivery into our own hands and bought a fleet of eco-bikes.
Spot us on the streets of Bristol.

When water and flour are mixed into dough, gluten is formed. Gluten binds the dough together and develops with stretching and folding. More gluten = stretchy elasticated dough. A good dough has enough elasticity to allow bubbles to form, and snaps back to its original shape when stretched.

Or more specifically, lactic acid fermentation. This is the type of fermentation we deal with in sourdough, when yeasts and good bacteria convert into sugars and starch. We ferment our dough for 24 to 48 hours.

Literally translating as ‘milk cream’, this smooth and rich mozzarella-style cheese is the glue that holds our pizzas together.

Our first home in Bristol. Find us at number 289 Gloucester Road.

Being pizza perfectionists, it’s taken some time to try and test our gluten-free dough recipe. We think we’ve finally nailed it. TRY IT for yourself.

Once upon a time in Ontario, Canada, a restaurant owner named Sam Panopoulos returned home from Detroit having sampled his first pizza. He saw a gap in the market in Canada and started serving it at his own restaurant. After two years of kitchen experimentation, a can of pineapple wound its way into his hands and onto a pizza. Having relished this sweet and salty combination, he dubbed it the ‘Hawaiian’ in honour of a canned pineapple brand. This monstrosity is rarely (if ever) seen on the Pizzarova menu.

Like most pizzerias, we measure our pizzas in inches. A hearty 12” is our standardids sizes are available.

The J may be silent (if you say it correctly) but there is no doubt that the jalapeno is the perfect way to spice up a pizza. 

The meditative act of working and reworking dough. This is a crucial step, never to be missed, and helps to develop the structure of dough. We do it with our hands because that’s the best way.

We started out as a mobile pizza oven in a converted Land Rover Defender. We call it ‘Landy’. You can hire it for your back garden.

Another word for starter. Specifically, it refers to the active sourdough starter, bubbling and ready to use.

A piece of crust terminology that refers to the dark, charred patches of the end crust. Consider it a sign of proper Neapolitan pizza.

In the hierarchy of what makes a great pizza, marinara is second to dough. It’s a simple recipe of tomatoes, garlic, herbs and onions. Knowing the right ratio of each ingredient is a game changer. We won’t give the game away.

The metropolitan mother of Neapolitan pizza. Our recipes, methods and appreciation of simple ingredients are all inspired by the pizza makers of Naples.

The fiery furnace that turns beautiful fresh ingredients into delicious pizzas. We use open kitchens and roaring Dragon ovens. Pop by our shops to see the magic for yourself.

Just imagine reaching into a huge 400°C oven to retrieve a pizza with your fingers. To avoid this recipe for disaster, we use a pizza peel. This long paddle-like utensil is used to slide pizza into and out of the oven. It’s a quick motion that’s hard to master – move too slowly and lose half your pizza to the flames.

As noted above, you’ll rarely (if ever) see this on our menu. Do let us know if you’re passionate about seeing pineapple at Pizzarova. We might judge you.

Here’s a lesson in basic geometry. The pizza theorem states that if two people share opposing slices from a cut pizza, they will enjoy an equal serving of the full pie. In other words, it’s a way of making sure you both get the big and little slices.

The Italian term for a person who makes pizza in a pizzeria. Most of us at Pizzarova do just this, but we don’t call each other pizzaiolos. That would be weird.

What a woman. Legend has it that in 1889, a Neapolitan pizza maker Raffaele Esposito created a pizza to honour the Queen of Italy, Margherita of Savoy during her visit to Naples. The key ingredients of tomato, mozzarella and basil represent the Italian flag colours.

Another important stage in the sourdough process. Before shaping into a base, the dough is left to rest. This relaxes the gluten and makes dough easier to stretch.

The beautiful county our Land Rover first roamed around. Also home to our favourite producers and suppliers.

A mixture of flour and water that is left to ferment before baking. It’s also the most glorious foodstuff.

In Bristol the average temperature is 8°C in winter, 19°C in summer. Our oven is always a solid 400°C

This is what you say when you see our menu and can’t make your mind up. Luckily, we’ve added seven classic topping combinations to our original menu.

We’ve got good ones, you’ve got good ones.

An internationally recognised championship that takes place every year in Italy. It runs across three days, awards one pizziola with producing ‘Best Overall Pizza’, and includes categories such as ‘Best Vegan Pizza’. Perhaps we’ll enter. One day.

Shorthand for your ex, who had bad taste in pizza anyway.

Generally speaking, yeast is a single-cell organism that converts food (sugar and starch) into carbon dioxide through fermentation. Commercial yeast, or instant yeast, is often used in home baking and engineered to rapidly accelerate the proofing time of bread. Wild yeast – like that found in a sourdough starter – is naturally occurring. We only use sourdough starter, no bakers yeast here!

Shorthand for pizza.