Editor Note: This was the original pop-up location for Oscar & Rosies before they moved to the kitchen at Das Kino

It has been a while since I have been able to find a decent slice of pizza in the city and this past Friday I headed over to visit the recently opened Oscar & Rosie’s to chance my luck. As it happened there was no need to think I was leaving my pizza fate to lady luck, she had been smiling down onto Carrington Street and my destiny was already pre-determined. I was about to sample some really excellent pizza. Oscar & Rosie’s, are based out of the Picnic basket on Carrington Street and they have set their stall out (or their pizza oven on) to bring us all some excellent gourmet pizza. So confident are they that they are operating on the tagline “Pizza as it should be”. I will make no apologies for Spoilers when I say that boast is going to be spot on.

The menu is filled with a lot of tasty sounding combinations, all well thought out. The menu lists are filled with quality ingredients, read to be mouth watering and are a little bit different (even the vegetarian options sounded good). The meats have been sourced locally from Nottingham butcher Johnny Pusztai of JT Beedhams in Sherwood. I have been there quite a few times and they probably have the best bacon in the county, not to mention excellent sausages. They are so good that nearly everywhere you eat around Notts are supplied by them including Sat Bains. I had  to mention them in particular, as I knew that every slice of pizza I chose would be featuring something from Johnny’s. You can find out more about Oscar & Rosies other ingredient suppliers on their website.

It was a bit tricky when we had to decide what toppings and pizza combinations to choose. I really wanted to try more than one of the suggested combo’s so I was happy to find that we could order by the slice. The next bonus was that as we were ordering a couple of slices each of a few of the choices, they made us a whole pizza and just divided it up with the different toppings in different section. So we had a quarter each of the “Meat Sweats”, a quarter of the “BBQ Chicken Combo”, and  quarter of the “Sausage Party”.

The first slice I tasted was the Sausage Party Pizza, this was topped with their hand cut Mozzarella, and a choice of sausage. I chose to have the imported chorizo option instead of the pepperoni. You could have it made hot and spicy, but I didn’t choose to have it that way. There was enough light heat and spice from the chorizo anyway and I prefer to get the flavour instead of the heat. The slice looked like it was dipped into the chorizo, but I think that was just the way it came out. This was a very tasty slice indeed.

The next slice we tried was the BBQ Chicken Combo topping. This wasn’t my choice but I am glad that I had it. There was a fair amount of chunky sliced chicken, crisp slices of smoked bacon, mushroom and roasted red onion all smothered (gently) with melted mozzeralla. I was really glad that they had been restrained with their BBQ sauce, there was enough to add a good flavor, but not so much that you could not taste all of the other toppings. That is where the pizzas here are a winner, they get the balance just right so that everything in the bite is a star, there are no pizza topping primadonnas on these slices of pizza.

We both wanted to try the “Meat Sweats” pizza, which despite the name, sounded to have the best combination of toppings on the menu. As well as more of the excellent freshly made home made tomato sauce and hand cut mozzarella, it was topped with slices of pepperoni, more of that crisp bacon and fennel infused sausage meat both from JT Beedhams. The pepperoni comes all the way from Wales from Gorno’s Speciality Foods and is another award winning product. This combination of toppings together with the excellent crunch of the pizza base made for a dream of a pizza. If I was ordering a whole pizza with just one type of topping then this would have been my (and will be my future) choice.

It is somewhat amazing and to be honest slightly remiss of me that I have waited until now to really talk about the pizza base. I have been desperate to blurt it out, and now I just cannot hold it back any more. Oscar and Rosie’s serve up a dynamite base, it is really good, a crisp crunchy bite, nicely charred on the bottom in a proper pizza oven so that you get that nice char taste. There is no sogginess, no floppiness, no uncooked over doughy bites, no just bite after bite of perfection.

It is about time that we had something worth talking about in the world of Nottingham Pizza, for far too long those over distributed chains Pizza World, Pizza Shed, and Pizza Rapido have sadly fed the city and other cities with lots of generic pizza. I am very happy that the recently opened Oscar & Rosie’s on Carrington Street have brought some excellent gourmet pizza to the table and they have raising the bar and heightened my expectations when it comes to having a Pizza in Nottingham.

I say it is Gourmet Pizza, but really if we are honest this it is just really what we should always receive when we hunt for a slice of pizza.

You can check out the menu and order online through the Oscar & Rosie’s website, check them out through their Facebook page and follow them on Twitter. Even better than that head over and visit them in person, after all that is the best way to eat an actual pizza, virtual pizza just doesn’t work very well.

You can find them as they say “in the real, actual world at 48 Carrington Street, Nottingham NG1 7FG between 1730 and 2300, Tuesday to Saturday.”