LovenPresents, Seven Sisters

One thing that is a simple reality for an amateur food blogger like myself – the restaurants visited will tend to be skewed towards the area I live and work in, which in my case is around the more central parts of East London. But when arranging a get-together of some old friends, we decided to strike out to Seven Sisters as one of the party had to get a train from Tottenham Hale. I donned my explorer’s outfit, and set off into the unknown.

A quick google for pizza places threw up LovenPresents, and some very favourable reviews.

We grabbed a drink nearby at a bar called Five Miles. A particularly sketchy man stomped into the beer garden, downed the dregs of the unattended drinks near us, sat around on his own for few minutes rubbing his head in some anguish, stomped inside, and then moments after I told the others about him, he chose to come and join us, asking us to buy him a pint before sitting down and asking all our names. We decided against inviting him into our circle, and made our way to the pizzeria. I mention this detail because it is something that some will want to consider – this is not (yet) a gentrified area, although it looks inevitable that it’s heading that way from what I saw. It’s definitely still pretty rough round the edges, it has the feel of Hackney Wick a few years ago. Essentially an industrial estate surrounded by a load of housing. Upper Street it is not. That doesn’t especially bother me, but some will find it very unsettling if they aren’t used to it. Obviously, we may have just been very unlucky. And plenty of sketchy people stomp around the more salubrious parts of Nottingham. But it feels like a relevant piece of the jigsaw, so there it is.

Lovenpresents itself is squirelled away upstairs in some sort of industrial unit, and it’s not at all obvious that there is a restaurant there unless you are looking for it. The place itself is a decent size, with the giant pizza oven and kitchen open to the left. A Tribe Called Quest – We’ve Got The Jazz was playing on arrival, which pleased me greatly, and they played ATCQ albums for the whole time we were there. Definite bonus points for this.

I was with 3 friends, so we decided the sensible thing to do was order 4 different pizzas and have a quarter of each. After much back and forth we settled on Buffalina (cherry tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, basil), Zola (Mozzarella, Gorgonzola, raddicchio, pistachios), Piccante (tomato, mozzarella, spicy salami, nduja, chillies, jalapenos), and Margot (smoked provola, sausage, mushrooms, truffle oil, parmesan). Drinks were very reasonably priced – the pizzas I felt were priced at quite a premium level given the location, so was curious to see how they were.

When they came out, they weren’t the prettiest pizzas I’ve ever been served, certainly in the case of the Zola and the Buffalina anyway, which had pretty large spaces toward the crust with no toppings. I’m not militant about pizzas being visually perfect, but that was notable. But visuals aren’t really what matters – how did they taste?

The Zola (£10) was decent, I’m a sucker for blue cheese on a pizza, although I felt that maybe there was a bit too much raddicchio and not enough pistachio. But the combo of flavours worked well. The Buffalina had it’s merits too – but 4 cherry tomato halves? Really? So the slice with a tomato was one thing, the other slice I had a very different experience. Surely a £9.50 pizza can stretch to an extra couple of cherry tomatoes so that each slice has a bit of the sweetness the set it off? And both the Zola and Buffalina had crusts that extended way too far towards the middle of the pizza for me. Nitpicking maybe? Maybe. But that’s my take, especially at the price point these were at.

I really liked both the Piccante (£11) and the Margot (£12), and no major complaints on the way these were topped either. The Piccante really had a serious kick to it, not for anyone who isn’t into genuinely spicy food. A whole one of those would get the brow sweating! The Margot was a lovely combo of flavours, with the sausage a decent quality, and the truffle oil present but not overpowering, bringing an aromatic indulgence to that one. Looking back at the pic, again it seems like the toppings were all a bit towards the centre, but I didn’t really notice that at the time, and enjoyed the pizza on it’s own terms.

The crusts on the pizzas were decent but not exceptional – a little bit doughy for my personal preference, but some prefer them that way. Not especially tasty crusts, but nothing wrong with them either.

All in all, a perfectly decent meal, but not something I’d go out of my way to repeat, and for most people in London, to go here is pretty far out of their way. Given the location (both area, and where it is in that area) I’m a little surprised that the prices are what they are, given what the prices are at competitors who I feel make pizza as good or better, but of course, I don’t know what the costs etc are in any given place, and tbf, the drinks were very well priced too.

7/10

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