North London Food & Culture

I say Delicious and you say Hideaway


No, we’re not arguing the toss about handbag house classics from the 1990s (ask yer mum). Instead, today’s mass debate revolves around two of the area’s diminutive pizza parlours. Which serves up the tastiest wood-fired wonders?

Is it a) miniscule, low-ceilinged heart-of-Kentish local Delicious by Franco, run by a Venetian family who dish up more than decent fare in their tiny check-clothed trattoria? We recently enjoyed both a very respectable ‘anchovy, capers & olives’, and ‘parma ham, rocket and parmesan’ at around £9 a pop, and they do carafes of wine too (always a winner for Mrs KT).

Or is it b) The Hideaway, a newish Tufnell Park discovery for The Kentishtowner, which accompanies its excellent thin-crust pizzas (we loved the Puttanesca – anchovies, capers, basil, and Giardiniera – artichokes, courgette, pine nuts, both around £8), with a dash of slightly-too-loud-for-a-Wednesday-night hip-hop, and an interior reminiscent (according to Mrs Kentishtowner) of a Leicester bar in the early 90s?


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If we had to choose, we would have been tempted to whisper “Hideaway”. It has a lovely garden too. And cocktails. But that was before Mrs Kentishtowner accidentally walked into the gents at Delicious. “It’s nothing short of an art installation,” she said, with a gasp of delight.

But anyway enough about toilets. What do you lot think? And please don’t say you prefer Itta. Or Stringray. But maybe Pane Vino is the connoisseur’s choice? (We have a soft spot for the place but have never tried their pizza).

Pray tell.

(And ps – we 100% support all efforts to get the Pizza Express building listed by English Heritage. Goddamn developers.)


5 thoughts on “I say Delicious and you say Hideaway”

  1. Pane Vino’s effort was nothing to blog home about the last time I tried, which was a shame as the restaurant is a good local.
    That pic from Hideaway looks superb. Has anyone checked out the new pizza offering at Tolli opposite the tube? They make some of the best grilled sandwich fillings in K-Town so I think it might be a good contender…?

  2. Oooh, that lovely, slightly floppy pizza at the Hideaway is delicious. Which is weird, as soft pizza shouldn’t be delicious. But it really is. (The Hideaway is also a great bar, and a much needed late drinking option in our ‘hood, but I suppose that’s a topic for another post).

  3. We attempted to try The Hideaway last week and found the experience aggravating. We wanted some olives followed by a couple of pizzas and salads. I’d no sooner said ‘green olives’ than the waiter shook his head and muttered ‘we don’t have any today.’ My husband asked whether the chilli pumpkin seeds were good. ‘Dunno, never tried them,’ said the waiter. On to pizza and salad, then. ‘We don’t have any salad today,’ he said. ‘It comes tomorrow.’ Silence. So we shrugged our shoulders and left. I guess we’re too old to find ‘too cool to care’ cool, so we won’t be back.

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5 thoughts on “I say Delicious and you say Hideaway”

  1. Pane Vino’s effort was nothing to blog home about the last time I tried, which was a shame as the restaurant is a good local.
    That pic from Hideaway looks superb. Has anyone checked out the new pizza offering at Tolli opposite the tube? They make some of the best grilled sandwich fillings in K-Town so I think it might be a good contender…?

  2. Oooh, that lovely, slightly floppy pizza at the Hideaway is delicious. Which is weird, as soft pizza shouldn’t be delicious. But it really is. (The Hideaway is also a great bar, and a much needed late drinking option in our ‘hood, but I suppose that’s a topic for another post).

  3. We attempted to try The Hideaway last week and found the experience aggravating. We wanted some olives followed by a couple of pizzas and salads. I’d no sooner said ‘green olives’ than the waiter shook his head and muttered ‘we don’t have any today.’ My husband asked whether the chilli pumpkin seeds were good. ‘Dunno, never tried them,’ said the waiter. On to pizza and salad, then. ‘We don’t have any salad today,’ he said. ‘It comes tomorrow.’ Silence. So we shrugged our shoulders and left. I guess we’re too old to find ‘too cool to care’ cool, so we won’t be back.

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The award-winning print and online title Kentishtowner was founded in 2010 and is part of London Belongs To Me, a citywide network of travel guides for locals. For more info on what we write about and why, see our About section.