Happy Dough Lucky – Excellent Neapolitan Style Pizza

Happy Dough Lucky have taken over The Lace House Bar in the Eastern Quarter with a Pop-up restaurant serving up some really quite decent Pizza. I had heard on the very low hanging Grapevine back in December that they were up and running with a very soft launch and that they were going to be at it for 12 weeks.

I read that they say “We didn’t just want to follow the crowd and serve you frozen, hand stretched pizza. We wanted to make real pizza, proper pizza, fresh Neapolitan pizza. So our flour is hand-milled in Naples, we only use San Marzano tomatoes & our vegetables are locally sourced where possible”

That really does sound quite a glorious ideal so I was really pretty keen to come along to the Lace House to try them out. I popped along this week with Alison one of my regular dining partners in crime to eat some Pizza.

Alison is great for eating all the vegetarian options so that I can concentrate on checking out the meat based stuff. Well that is my excuse and rationale for teaming up on these MyFoodHunt expeditions.

Anyway we walked on in, grabbed a couple of menus, had a chat about what was good and ordered up some food.

So What did we eat?

Pizza Menu

I have be honest and say that I liked the sound of every single one of the pizza that they had on the menu at Happy Dough Lucky. It was nice to see that mostly they had thought out a few more original flavour combinations

The Pizza are named by number which made it pretty easy to order. Number 1 on the list was a vegetarian effort featuring ‘Courgette ribbon, Artichoke, Mushrooms, Sundried Tomato, and Mozzarella‘ , Alison ordered that one.

We were not sharing so I just had to order Number 4 which was topped with ‘Sausage, Prosciutto, Mushroom, Egg, Tomato, and Mozzarella‘ so many items of joy all on one pizza pie!

I almost ordered Number 2 topped with ‘Nduja, Prosciutto, Chilli, Basil, Ricotta, and Mozzarella‘ but the thought of that soft yolked egg on top of pizza ‘Number 4’ swung the pizza wind in the direction of yum town.

Number 4 – Sausage, Prosciutto, Mushroom, Egg, Tomato, Mozzarella

My Pizza was as promised in the rustic style, I really liked that the toppings of Sausage, Prosciutto, Mushroom, Egg, Tomato, and Mozzarella were kind of randomly sprawled all over the place.

I had seen a picture of this pizza somewhere on line, I think in the Nottingham Post where the egg with a still yellow yolk was sitting proudly right in the centre. On my pie though the egg was on one quarter and at first I was greedily hunting to see if there was going to be another one lurking somewhere on the other side.

No such joy though I was overhoping and even though that is not a real word I still was.

The pizza base was really excellent, the bottom had that nice slightly blackened char on it which I like, but I know not everyone does. I think it adds a little bit more of a toasty taste, maybe a little smokiness. I googled out of interest to see what other people think and found a great post on Serious Eats with a mixed view.

The best description was “the right splotchwork of flaky, black, carbonized crust” and the words ‘Artfully Charred‘ were also used. In an ode to that I will say that the Pizza base at Happy Dough Lucky was ‘charred gently with careful consideration’

I really liked the tomato sauce, it had a great fresh flavour, I could almost taste the fruit pulled straight from the vine. The cheese was great too, it pulled slowly apart as if it was trying to hold on for dear life to the next slice. The slices of Prosciutto were both plentiful and tasty

Number 1 – Courgette ribbon, Artichoke, Mushrooms, Sundried Tomato, Mozzarella

Alison’s choice of Pizza was a really grown up effort, one for those Vegetarians that actually like vegetables. It had the same cheese and tomato base flavours as my pizza, but then the ‘meatiness’ was added with the hearty artichoke which does give an earthiness to the dish. The Courgette ribbons add lots of lightness and juiciness and brighten up the whole thing. They alongside the freshness of the tomato add a real pop to the bite.

Small Plates

I was feeling hungry and perhaps a little bit greedy and decided to try out the Mac and Cheese from the small plates menu. I was slightly blunt but honest when I asked them if their Mac and Cheese was any good before I ordered. I mean some places just serve up wallpaper paste and pasta shapes with a smile, so I needed to be sure 🙂

I was most happy to find that their version of Mac and Cheese was pretty darn decent, it pleased me no end!

It was a very simple and very flavoursome blend of three cheeses mixed into the big pasta shapes. There was plenty of gooey cheese sauce and a nice topping of toasted bread crumbs to add a little texture. This is more or less how I make mac n cheese at home, the only difference being that I usually mix a whole load of fried smoked bacon into mine.

The only downside was that it was a pretty large portion for one person so I was not able to stuff both that and my pizza into my big fat gob 🙂 Next time I will not eat all day so that I can manage both!

I tried to persuade Alison to join me in the quest to scoff the Mac n Cheese but she had taken the challenge of an equally large portion of her own with a great big box of Sweet Potato Fries. They looked really good and were really well cooked, nice and crispy on the outside. I am not a massive fan though as they are too sweet for me, I just like normal potato chips. I know I am such a ‘stick in the mud’ 🙂

Drinky poos darlin

Drinks wise they were serving up one hell of a tasty yet slightly lethal (in a good way) cocktail. It came in a kind of cute tin which for one I approved of, it was better than a jam jar anyway, it also came packed with an alcoholic punch! Honestly I cannot remember what was in it, but it was so tasty that I would be willing to chance my arm on another one of their cocktail offerings