I’ve talked about my love of La Perla Amsterdam before, so it’s no surprise that when I was sorely craving some great pizza this week, this was the first place I wanted to go.
Located on the corner of a cute street in the Jordaan neighbourhood of Amsterdam, La Perla owns a restaurant on one side of the street and a takeaway on the other. The funny part is, the wood-fired pizza oven is located in the takeaway, meaning that every pizza ordered in the restaurant has to get carried across the street. Thankfully for me, as someone who *really* worries about things like that, it hasn’t been raining either time I’ve visited La Perla. Which, come to think of it, is miracle in itself. I dread the day I visit and there’s a downpour and the waitress is carrying my now soggy margherita across the street.
We started off with some Prosecco for me and a glass of red for Scott. They only sell one type of Prosecco, so I was glad that it was light and fruity and not too dry.
As we are now almost totally vegetarian (yeah, I know, it’s pretty shocking to me, too), Scott ordered a margherita and I ordered the stracchino e bufala, which is the same as the margherita but topped with a soft cheese as well as the mozzarella, and minus the fresh basil. We’ve had a couple of bad pizza experiences recently (remember when I described the baby gem lettuce to you in my last post? *shudders*) and so we really just wanted some good tomato-and-cheese pizza. Nothing fancy. Just a really tasty, well-baked pizza.
And, as expected, that’s exactly what we got.
The crusts here are crispy and floury but still soft enough to fold without snapping (should you be so inclined). All of their produce is apparently imported from Italy and you can really taste this in the quality of the mozzarella. It is soft and melty and ever-so-creamy. The extra stracchino cheese on mine was gooey and delicious, although I couldn’t really tell where the stracchino ended and the mozzarella began. Definitely not one of the worst problems in my life right now.
All in all it was a great, hot, fluffy, cheesy pizza. Just what the docter ordered.
Having sampled their chocolate cake on my last visit, I was eager to try their tiramisu this time, but alas, they had just sold the last piece when we got around to asking about desserts. Unfortunately that is the downside of this place being so popular, and our reservation of 8.30pm hadn’t even been that late.
We opted for the only dessert they had left, the lemon pistachio cake with a couple of cappuccinos.
Luckily for me, Scott isn’t a huge fan of lemon desserts, so I got to eat most of it to myself, but even he enjoyed this moist homemade cake. It tasted a lot like lemon drizzle cake, with an added crunch of pistachios and a topping of sugared lemon rind. The coffees were some of the best I’ve had recently, probably partly because they serve Bocca coffee here, a local grinder we discovered at the Amsterdam Coffee Festival not too long ago.
All around, another great meal at La Perla. I can’t wait to go again, although I’ll be sure to check the weather beforehand.
- La Perla, Tweede Tuindwarsstraat 14, 531015 RZ Amsterdam
- Open 10am – 10pm daily
- pizzaperla.nl
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