Eating out in our new temporary home of Sanlucar de Barrameda seems to be very easy. With many options, in what The Guardian called, Spain’s new capital of gastronomy, we do seem to be very spoiled for choice. We’re still to get stuck into really exploring the food scene here – we’ve only been here a couple of weeks (but have extended our stay to the end of January, so plenty of upcoming opportunities) and we are still delighting in the fact that we are close to excellent supermarkets, full of the freshest of produce and we have a fabulous, full size, fully equipped kitchen, so cooing in, is a pleasure again.
However, not to far from our apartment, we came across Pizzeria Macana, which is takeaway only, but had just amazing reviews.
“An experience full of flavor from the first bite to the edges. A very pleasant dough, you can taste each ingredient. It feels like the ingredients are of quality. The speed with which I was served was excellent. You can see the effort and passion, you can see it in the details.”
“A great discovery! Thin dough, well made, crispy on the edges and with super tasty and top quality ingredients! Very clean and modern staff and premises. Without a doubt they are in the top three pizzerias in Sanlucar.”
“The best pizza I have ever tried without any doubt! I came expressly from Seville to spend the day in Sanlúcar and to try the pizzas that people talk so much about.”
And, as over the past seven years, in Istria, we’ve had to travel a fair distance to get decent pizzas, we just had to investigate Macana, less than 100 metres from our current temporary home. Especially as someone had actually travelled over 100kms from Seville to get one of these pizzas! We were immediately impressed by the branding and the design of the takeaway – nothing cheap or off-the-peg here, which we knew was a good sign. The interior was also scrupulously clean – another good sign, showing attention to detail and a clear signal that this is NOT just a fast food joint. The stylish counter, which opened up into a big kitchen, meant that you could also see your food being handled and prepared. I can honestly say that this place is restaurant standard, with the advantage that you either collect or have your food delivered, to the comfort of your own home. Which is sometimes a really nice thing to do, especially when your opportunities to have superb takeaways pizzas have been very limited.
So, the pizzas. What did we think of these? Well, we firstly quite surprised by the prices – all at €19.90 – which did a bit hefty, but we quickly realised that the pizzas were huge, and you could order an individual slice, half a pizza or a whole one, and this meant you could mix it up, by the slice, or the half and the price reduced accordingly. A perfect way to do it if a few of you were getting together for a pizza night. But we decided that we wanted a bit of spice, and so opted for the full size La Jalapeña, with tomatoes, mozzarella, mushrooms, black olives, pepperoni and chopped jalapeñas. With a portion of what seem to be the very famous fries. These comes with a variety of toppings, but I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to me fries, so we chose the ones with four separate, fresh salsas, in individual pots – perfect for a couple with one who loves salsas, and the other who doesn’t like them.
Happily, the reviews were right. Our pizza was huge – although with a fab thin crust and just the right amount of toppings (so not overloaded, especially on the cheese front) – we weren’t stuffed at the end, even with the addition of the fries. All of the ingredients were super fresh and ridiculously tasty. Especially the pepperoni, which was incredibly good quality and with a smoky flavour. Although it was the spiciest pizza on the menu, it wasn’t fiery. It was superbly seasoned and exceptionally tasty. A real Saturday nigh treat – and even more so, because we only had to go around the corner to get it. Looking forward to our next Macana Pizza Night already…