Banstead, Pizza - Restaurant Guide

“No flowery, fine-dining pretensions: just a warm, dog-friendly place with a short, but always interesting, menu” – such are the recommendations for this brilliantly run 1830s pub on the edge of Wimbledon Common, which does a roaring year-round trade, and makes particularly good use of its front terrace and lawn in the summer. Casks of guest beers and ciders are on display behind the bar (long-serving landlord Andrew Ford is a real ale enthusiast). Top Menu Tip – “the pies are worth the 20-minute wait!”

This modern Italian in Wimbledon Village wins consistent – if consistently middling – ratings and is, say fans, the “ideal local”, with home-made pasta and thin-crust pizza topping the bill.

“Situated just off Streatham High Street”, this “tiny little place” is “filled with heart, serving amazing pizzas and spritzes that transport you straight to Italy”. “They regularly have interesting specials on the blackboard, but the normal menu has plenty of choice for all tastes”, including “by far some of the juiciest and most flavourful pizzas ever”.

2022 Review: “Great pizza in a cycle-themed restaurant”, alongside high-energy breakfast and brunch, washed down by decent coffee, fuel the peloton that passes through Putney on the way to and from Richmond Park – “what’s not to like?”. The branch in Balham closed down in 2020.

2025 Review: This seven-year-old independent a couple of doors along from Chez Bruce on the edge of Wandsworth Common is reckoned by fans to offer among the “best pizza in town”. “I only discovered it recently but it has become a favourite”.

2023 Review: “Always fresh sourdough pizza” has helped build a strong local following for this hip southeast London group, with outlets in Crystal Palace, Nunhead, West Norwood, Herne Hill and Elephant & Castle. A new natural wine selection from specialist importer Les Caves de Pyrène is now available alongside the craft beers on tap. Top Tip – “make sure you leave room for the ice cream”.

2023 Review: “Always fresh sourdough pizza” has helped build a strong local following for this hip southeast London group, with outlets in Crystal Palace, Nunhead, West Norwood, Herne Hill and Elephant & Castle. A new natural wine selection from specialist importer Les Caves de Pyrène is now available alongside the craft beers on tap. Top Tip – “make sure you leave room for the ice cream”.

2025 Review: A “great old-school Italian” that has provided “engaging” and stalwart service in Clapham’s ‘Nappy Valley’ for decades, with “more than adequate food and a jolly relaxed atmosphere”.

The title of ‘best pizza in London’ is often claimed but impossible to prove – but the ‘longest pizza in London’ (so he claims) is found at Diego Palladino’s Battersea pizzeria, where it has been sold by the metre (‘al metro’) for more than 30 years. A meal here is “always fun (if a little loud) and the food is good”.

2023 Review: “Always fresh sourdough pizza” has helped build a strong local following for this hip southeast London group, with outlets in Crystal Palace, Nunhead, West Norwood, Herne Hill and Elephant & Castle. A new natural wine selection from specialist importer Les Caves de Pyrène is now available alongside the craft beers on tap. Top Tip – “make sure you leave room for the ice cream”.

2024 Review: “Great pizza that’s very good value” is the USP of this Neapolitan-style shopfront outfit by Brockwell Park. It used to have three offshoots across South London, but now only the Herne Hill branch is ongoing.

2023 Review: “Fab” California-style pizzas (bigger and fresher toppings, apparently) are all you can eat at this handy converted public convenience next to Clapham Common tube, apart from the breakfast butties served until 2pm. There’s also red & white wine on tap, and own-label beers by the can.

Duo of valued “neighbourhood hang-outs” in Dulwich Village and South Ken, providing a “pleasant, safe option” (and a “kid friendly” one too); “the food is in standard pizza and pasta territory, but freshly prepared and in decent portions”.

2023 Review: “Tasty thin-crust dough – cooked well in the middle, so no soggy bottoms” – is the secret to the appeal of this seven-strong South London sourdough pizzeria group, where the emphasis is on local ingredients (including Shipton Mill flour and British-made buffalo mozzarella) washed down with locally brewed craft beers and juices from Kent.

“Top-class pizza at the new outlet by Kew Gardens” (on the site of Hawthorn, RIP) wins a particular thumbs-up this year for this “properly Neapolitan” chain (“down to the shrine to Diego Maradona on the wall” in TW9). It was well-rated this year, if not as stratospherically as days gone by, supporting those who feel: “I don’t seem as keen on this place as everyone else, but it’s fresh and friendly and local”. The group started in Ealing over 15 years ago and – as well as its Kew launch – also added a Paddington branch in 2025 to join those in Fitzrovia, Fulham and Islington.

“Fabulous pizza” – “quick, fresh, delicious”, and “impeccably made with original toppings” – makes this London-based group “a Friday night favourite”, with 14 outlets across the capital and counting. Founders Johnnie Tate & Nick Buckland last year secured investment designed to boost their presence to 40 sites over five years.

2024 Review: Diminishing feedback in recent years makes it hard to recommend this “noisy and fun”, family-run Sardinian on Brockley Rise quite as resoundingly as we used to. Fans, though, still say it’s “a super, local Italian trattoria, with a great menu: especially the quirky ice cream and sorbet flavours”.