If you know a delicious taco and a doughy round thing that hooked up, tell them their child is going by the name la mexicana and being served at the new Bella Pizza.
Having opened in December on a hard-to-find pedestrian shopping street in Xin Zhou Village, Bella Pizza shows none of the growing pains of a new business – with both flavors and foibles firmly established by former and current employees of La Casa, a Coco Park institution.
Though there are some obvious La Casa holdovers – namely a focus on home-style recipes – staff stress that Bella Pizza is not just the Coco Park bar’s food in a different location, with la mexicana (RMB65/9 inch RMB85/12 inch) exclusive to the shop. On our visit, the flavorful pie of spicy beef, jalapenos and onions is cooked in a conveyor-belt oven only after the pizza sauce is made from scratch.
Though the margherita (RMB50/9 inch RMB70/12 inch) offers no surprises, more intrepid diners will be tempted by the peanut chicken pizza (RMB65/9 inch RMB85/12 inch), which is made with peanut-sauce marinated chicken breast, sweet peppers and red onions. Food comes served on bamboo platters that are about as wide as the long black counter that rings the open kitchen, which dominates the restaurant’s humble space.
With only 10 seats, it is a tight fit if you want to chow and chat with the English-speaking staff, so most diners will likely choose to sit in the Western-style bar next door or simply order out. To that end, Bella Pizza is on the usual food apps and an old-fashioned phone call means delivery to much of Futian District.
Herbivores and dark-beer drinkers take note, for the next few months, any pizza order gets a free Caesar salad or 500-milliliter bottle of German beer (both usually RMB35).
Price: RMB50-85
Who’s going: La Casa food fans, neighbors
Good for: Homemade-style pizza, fresh ingredients
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