Pizza, Oh Dear

I interrupt my usual travel writing (no, this is not a travel blog) with something closer to home.

Pizza.

Or more specifically, the endless wave of pizzerias now blighting the UK, spreading across cities like an unstoppable beige tide of sourdough, San Marzano tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella.

This week in Sheffield, where I’m from, a new opening arrived in the city centre: Forbici. Already operating in Manchester, it has now headed over the Pennines, bringing yet another Neapolitan-style offering to a city already flooded with them.

And it made me wonder: is there any limit to this copy-and-paste way of feeding people?

The ubiquitous pizza napoletana

Sheffield, of course, is behind London, which at least now has a more diverse range of pizza sub-genres. London has moved on to Roman slices, New York folds, Detroit trays (admittedly there are also a couple of these in Sheffield), Chicago deep dish, New Haven cult imports, and whatever people are currently calling “London style”.

Sheffield, meanwhile, is still stuck in the mid-2010s hype cycle of all things Naples.

Back to Forbici, though, who have perhaps realised that the Steel City doesn’t exactly have a shortage of pizza napoletana already. And instead of marketing themselves on the familiar holy trinity of best dough, best tomatoes, best mozzarella, they appear to have opted for a slightly more bizarre left-field approach.

Their angle is this:

Come here… because you cut your pizza with scissors… Forbici also translating to scissors, in English.

Apparently, this is the Neapolitan way - Here was me thinking the Neapolitan way was either folding it up portafoglio style and eating it on the street, or sitting down with knife and fork, slightly burned fingertips and a look of mild superiority.

In Sheffield, the world leader in manufacturing blades, perhaps the scissors are the most locally authentic part of the experience?

If anything embodies the sheer mass of identikit Neapolitan pizza options now boring many UK cities, it is surely this.

My first question is: why would anyone care about the method of cutting pizza?

People have been managing perfectly well for decades. Entire generations have survived without artisanal scissors. I admit I’ve even used them at home myself, on the rare occasion I buy a supermarket pizza for the oven. It works. It’s fine. It’s not exactly a culinary revelation.

My second question is: how sustainable can this kind of marketing possibly be?

A restaurant built on kitchen scissors feels unsustainable. What happens when the novelty wears off? Do they move on to machetes? Hedge trimmers?

Ironically, their pizza does look very nice. I’m sure it tastes very good. I have no issue whatsoever with Forbici.

My issue lies elsewhere.

A refreshing change - pizza romana al taglio

It’s the lack of imagination. The sense that outside London, the dining scene has largely become trapped in a loop: the same concept (see also, smashed burgers), the same aesthetic, the same language, the same slightly reverential obsession with Naples, repackaged again and again with some small gimmick taped on top.

And perhaps I’m being snobby. Perhaps I need to loosen up.

But I can’t help feeling it’s a slightly sad reflection of where we are that hype for a new opening is now generated not by flavour, or originality, or even atmosphere…but by the utensils.

All that being said, I know full well that the next time I’m back in Sheffield, I’ll be yearning for one of Napoli Centro’s Maradona-stamped pizza boxes making its way to my door.

Pizzeria… Pizza, oh dear.

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