Franco's Pizzeria, Crookes
IS this the restaurant time forgot? I had certainly forgotten all about Franco's Pizzeria in Crookes, a pocket handkerchief of a place on the brow of the hill, until a reader e-mailed in to include it in my BYO list.
"Good food and no corkage," he said.
And then it all came flooding back. It was 20 years ago when we went to Franco's and had a lock-in. Not for a booze-up but a sing-in. Elaine D'Egido winkled her hubbie Franco, from San Remo, out of the kitchen, she let off balloons and Franco performed his party piece, an Anglo-Italian version of The Wild Rover.
Gosh we said. Is Franco's still there? We'll have to go again. And it wasn't a bit like that.
For a start we drove right past. Franco's doesn't have much frontage and what it has seems apologetic. A red canopy over the front door is torn to shreds.
Inside - it's no bigger than many people's front rooms with seats for 30 - the blue Artex walls are almost hidden by pictures and postcards. But there are at least two maps of Sardinia. Did I get it wrong about Franco's home town?
What's more the front of house man is called Nigel, which must be a first for an Italian restaurant, but he seems pretty good in a quiet, self-effacing way.
Much later we learn what has happened. Franco's may still be called Franco's but for the last 18 years Carlo Ventura has owned and run the place and done the cooking.
He's from Sardinia, hence the maps, but apart from that he's found very little reason to change things. Not the gingham curtains nor matching gingham tablecloths. Even the menu looks much the same although Carlo says he's added dishes.
The prices have certainly changed and I resolve there and then to eat what I did 20 years ago, in a sort of Proustian bid to remember times past.
Nigel goes around greeting customers by name. There are obviously a lot of loyal regulars here. "We've been coming for 19 years," say the couple on the next table.
Last time I had soup, stracciatella, chicken and egg soup for 1. This time it was mushroom (3.50) and pretty good it was, too. We should have checked the garlic bread - 20 years ago it was half a breadcake wiped with garlic. But I did get several slices of white supermarket bread with the soup.
Mrs Food and Drink wasn't having any of this times past mullarkey and ordered the home made pat instead of the antipasto misto she'd had before. Pat was off so she had the melon and Parma ham, a little pricey for 5.10 but it was very good ham and juicy melon.
Twenty years ago my main course was pizza vampire at 4.10, with anchovies 30p extra. Today the same dish is 8.10, anchovies 70p. So that's the Crookes pizza inflation index. I liked it then and I like it now. True, an Italian would wince at all the toppings - tomato sauce, cheese, mushrooms, ham, salami, onions, peppers, egg, olive, sliced tomato and chilli and garlic - but it sort of worked.
I could have done with real ham, as with the melon, rather than the tinned, chopped nonsense on the pizza, and a herb or two wouldn't have come amiss but Franco's doesn't seem to go in for them.
The base, what you would call rustic, was perfectly fine. You get two and a half anchovy fillets for 70p.
The garlic and chilli comes from a shake of dried flakes. Pizza marinara (7.90) it says simply on a menu under pastas. You have to ask what sort the pasta is. It's penne, with tuna and prawns and it's okay.
My good lady was perfectly happy to revisit the past for dessert as it was zabaglione.
It's not on the list of 45 sweets they can do, most of which seem to be out of the freezer, but if they're not busy, like the look of you and order for two, they'll do it.
Then it cost 3.20, today its 5.40. Then it was the best I'd had and it's still in My Top Five today.
Carlo, who used to be at the Trattoria Romana on Ecclesall Road, says he's not heard from Franco, who retired down south, for years.
Our bill, with indifferent coffees, came to 34.20. Back then it was 16.05.
253 Crookes, Sheffield, S10 1TF. Tel: 0114 266 5245.
Open Tues-Sat 6-10.30pm. No credit cards. BYO (no corkage). No disabled toilets. Street parking.
My star ratings (out of five):
Food HHH
Atmosphere HHH
Service HHH
Value HHH
Italian restaurant category
What do you think? Add your comment below.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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