Francescos

Rest : Francescos Pizzeria 

Meal : Dinner (Takeout) 

Loc : Chinoy Mansion, Warden Road, Gate Next to Precious 

Sunday evening, hunger pangs usually lead to us ordering something and then waiting forever to get it. We decided to head to our club for dinner instead but half way down Chowpatty saw that the floodlights were on at Wankhede which could only mean an abominable IPL match, which meant the club facilities would be closed.

So we turned around and were thinking of ordering Dominos (which i dislike) or Smokin Joes (which i like but takes forever to deliver, especially on Sunday) It occurred to me that there were two pizza joints we had not tried.  One was Junos which is addressed as Hughes Road, no building no number. The other was Francesco's Pizzeria

If it had only occurred to us 30 mins before, we wouldn't have had to go half way down Marine Drive and then turn back, Francesco's is about a 10 min walk from my place. In any case, Francesco's has just about the worse location, its located in a lane right next to Precious Hairdressers, opposite St.Stephens Church at Warden Road (why they have addressed it as Kemps Corner i will never understand)

Now, real estate being what it is in Bombay, the location itself does not bother me one bit, conversely its inconvenient location raised my expectations quite a bit, thoughts of a glorious pizzeria tucked away in a garage was quite a romantic foodie notion.

The place is small, a handful of tables that can seat at the most ten people, since the tables were full we decided to get the pizza to go. The menu is small, about a dozen and a half pizza options (7,10,13 inch) with some desserts. One can choose to make their own pizza as well. 

We ordered some garlic bread (50 i think) which was softy and very oily to taste. 

The 10inch Margherita (225) was absolutely ordinary, really nothing to write home about. The sauce was flat and the cheese had no character, just really tasteless.

The other option we chose was Margherita 13 inch with jalapeños and mushrooms i think (450 =330 + 50 per topping) The toppings made this better than the 10 incher but that itself is nothing to write home about.

Overall, the interminable wait for the pizza did annoy us a little but they have only been open for a few days and I am willing to cut them some slack for it. I would also be okay with the wait if it was worth it, however i thought their pizzas were terrible.

The crust is thin, not Indigo Deli thin but just about, they have a wheat base option but no regular crust ( i like any crust, thin, regular, deep dish, whatever)

So not only was it bad pizza, it was not filling (which is a good thing i guess) and the price pretty much killed any little joy that was to be found.. They didn't even cut the pizzas and we ended up pawing at them like hyenas.

Its one thing if they had some crazy artists putting their heart and soul in it and charging a bomb, that i can live with but this was sheer mediocrity and 800 bucks for mediocrity is way too much. We had to pick up a salad and a half sub (250 bucks) at Subway next door because we were sure this would not be enough.

Id order Domino's before id order from Francesco's again.. and i HATE Domino's.

Papa Johns where art thou?

Food : 3/10
Service : 5/10
Damage : 800

PS. The wife and i have been arguing about this, she thinks the pizza was pretty good (but then she married me, so i cant say much about her state of mind) perhaps i will do another test and revert at some point long as she is paying.