Mostro Pizza Chicken BBQ |
There is a buzz around Crawley at the moment, Mostro Pizza has come to town, the worlds first takeaway that cooks your food outside your door.
Mostro Pizza launched in January of this year serving the people of East Grinstead, they now have a second van and have come to Crawley, amidst much excitement. Such a fantastic concept, you book a 15 minute slot, a pizza van comes to your house and cooks you fresh pizza on your doorstep (not literally, they do use a pizza oven!) in 90 seconds, you don’t get much fresher than that!
There are a great variety of pizza offerings including vegan options. We ordered La Mostro (The Monster), a tomato base with nduja sausage, pepperoni, red onion, mozzarella, fresh chilli and roquito peppers, we also opted for the pepperoni Classico, chicken bbq and a couple of the pizza breads, garlic, rosemary & mozzarella and Mostro chilli cheese.
As well as the pizzas and pizza breads they also offer a selection of salads, gelato and soft drinks.
Jonny and Dre of Mostro Pizza |
Bang on time, the Crawley van arrives with the lovely Jonny and Dre who were to prepare our food. They parked up on the driveway and opened the sides of the van to reveal the pizza oven and loads of little compartments containing all the ingredients.
The pizza dough is pre measured so each portion is identical, Jonny and Dre then set about making our pizzas. We had the full show, they stretched the pizza by hand, bit of theatrics thrown in, the kids loved it (ok, so did we..)
They soon had the bases ready which they topped with their secret tomato sauce (I will do my best to get the recipe!) and then loaded them up with toppings.
Each Pizza went onto the spade of doom (that’s what the kids named it) and was placed into the pizza oven, in no time at all (90 seconds to be precise) they were cooked to perfection.
Hot and fresh from the oven! |
Jonny and Dre then made our pizza breads, boxed it all up and that was it, our order was ready! We bid our farewells and headed in to get stuck into a slice of what we now know is pizza heaven!
The finished products - all boxed and ready to eat! |
Don’t get me wrong, we have all enjoyed a takeaway pizza, but by the time it gets to you, whilst nice, it loses a little something in the journey to get to your door, no such worries with Mostro Pizza, it is as fresh as you can get.
La Mostro, made fresh on our drive! |
Not only did the pizza and pizza bread look great, they tasted great as well, the pizza was light, the blistered burnt bubbles just added to the flavour alongside the fantastic toppings, the pepperoni was a little spicy for our youngest but we loved it, nice little hit of heat.
Our fresh pizza breads from Mostro Pizza |
Anyone who knows us knows we like a good kick of heat so definitely next time we will request extra chilli on our La Mostro and Mostro chilli cheese bread. The pizza breads were light and tasty but as a personal preference, I will see if we can get extra garlic next time, I like to know that if I were to run into a vampire, I would be able to see them off with my garlic breath!
I have to say, I really think the future of the takeaway is here, fantastic concept, really great service and outstanding food all cooked to perfection on your doorstep, what more could you ask for! As well as cooking your food on your doorstep you can also arrange to book them for events, taste experiences and pizza making parties!
Mostro Pizza deliver Wednesday to Sunday - 4pm till 9pm, minimum order only £20, book your slot at Mostropizza.co.uk
I posed a few questions to the lovely guys at Mostro Pizza and this is what they had to say.
Q: How did the name Mostro (monster) pizza come about?
A: Mostro is Italian for Monster and that’s the feeling and image we wanted for the trucks when they are out on the road. To look distinctive, like something you haven’t seen before and for neighbours to be peeking out the door when we are in their road making and cooking pizzas. We wanted to tip our hat to the Italian inspiration of the Neapolitan style dough we make and Mostro Pizza had the right ring to it!
Q: Launching during a pandemic, some might think it was a risky move, what made you do it then?
A: Its fair to say that necessity is the Mother of Invention, we own a corporate catering business, supplying business lunches and catering large events and come March 2020 we lost 90% of our income. We had just imported an amazing pizza oven from Italy for a new contract we had just won. All of those events were cancelled overnight so we had to decide what to do with all this equipment we just purchased.
We wanted to keep as many staff on the books as possible so thought about how we could create a COVID safe operation. Most Pizza trucks are big and you all stand inside for hours on end with poor ventilation, we didn’t want to have to ask staff to do that in the current climate. So we built a vehicle that you would access the oven and the prep area from the side so staff can maintain social distancing and are outside. The vehicle we have chosen is small enough to park on peoples drives and when we started making the pizzas we just new they were too good when served fresh from the oven. As soon as you put these type of pizzas in a box for 20 minutes they lose what makes them so special so the only way to deliver the best quality pizza is to take the oven to the customer!
Of course it is a risk but one we were happy to take and so far the response we have had from our customers is overwhelming!
Q: you have a good range of pizzas, are customers able to customise their pizza if they fancy something a little different?
A: As our pizza are made fresh outside the customers home all you need to do is ask the chef to add a topping or take one off! We are developing a Mostro App will allow more flexibility for changing toppings as well.
Q: What are your plans with the menu for the future, any chance we will see calzone or fresh pasta dishes served alongside the pizzas and sides you currently have?
A: We have just tweaked the menu to offer more variety for sides, twists on the our garlic bread, using either pumpkin or truffle paste and added some new options for more traditionally popular pizzas such as a BBQ base and a slightly less spicy pepperoni! We are pizza specialists so no plans to add pasta options to these trucks…
Q: What is the future for Mostro Pizza, any plans to perhaps open a restaurant or will you remain mobile with more pizza vans in the fleet?
A: We feel that this is the Future of Takeaways, food prepared and cooked at the door to provide the best possible experience and meal to the customer. With the explosion in food delivery apps customers have more options and they might provide convenience but food made in ‘Dark Kitchens’ and then on a bike riders back for 20 minutes doesn’t put the customer first. The result is usually food that is warm rather than hot with so much single use plastic and packaging. We wanted to put the customer at the heart of our business so the plan is to build more trucks and expand our areas so we can bring the freshest and hottest pizzas to more neighbourhoods. The short term – over the next 2 months is covering the whole of Crawley from our initial launch in Pound Hill and Maidenbower. We would hope to bring on Franchise partners at some point to help us grow!
Q: Having seen some videos you clearly know how to stretch the dough when making your pizzas, where did you learn your craft or is this something you learnt when deciding on this style of cuisine?
A: The only way you become good at throwing and stretching pizza is practice! We spoke to a very experienced pizza chef to talk to us about dough and how to improve our skills which was invaluable, but at the end of the day it’s the time making 1000’s of pizzas that make Mostro Pizzas what they are. With an expanding team we are employing great pizza chefs who have the same passion we have for great ingredients made and cooked in the right way so our customers get not just amazing food but a great experience from the moment we arrive at their homes.