La Piola, Leopald Road-My review.

I've literally stumbled into some of my favourite restaurants by chance the first time I visited, and so it was with La Piola a few weeks back. I was wandering down to the AFC Wimbledon club shop at lunchtime with my wife, and was famished. Given it was the choice between the fish & chip shop which is very good but Sarah was never going to with for lunch, or a posh looking coffee shop that sells cakes (I would have literally eaten everything they had and still been hungry) we settled on the cute looking pizza place. 

To cut a long story long, it was utterly fabulous. We sat out in this lovely little garden bit out the back, the pizza was ace and the birds were tweeting really loud. That's not a euphemism either, they literally were.

Anyhow given the rugby boy was back from uni, we decided to revisit Tony & Bella last Sunday night. We had some calamari, a garlicky prawns thingie, some cheesy garlic bread, some bruschetta, you know the kind of thing. We had Milly as well as Charlie with us, so despite the generous portions there's never any danger of anything being left over. QUICK NOTE HERE- All the portions here are big, but they don't substitute size for quality, it is all really good.

To drink, Charlie started smashing back pints of Moretti (don't know where he gets it from), Milly had an Aperol Spritz for reasons best known to herself, Sarah was on the vino and I'm still on the alcohol free stuff for reasons best not talked about.

For mains, we all toyed with the idea of pasta (another table had pasta and it looked lovely) but we all had pizza. I repeated my order of a few weeks earlier and had "American hot". The pizzas are big, with fresh dough, and loads of toppings.

We got another round in and some desserts. Two had home made tiramasu which was massive and sensational, I had chocolate brownie with ice cream. We then wiled the night away working out how much money we'll have when both kids have been through university.

The bill came to £142, which is utterly sensational value for a really lovely meal. I've a hunch that one or two local people see this place as a kind of "takeaway pizza joint", and use the old deliveroo for an occasional nibble while watching Ozark. I'm here to tell you though, La Piola is MUCH better than that. The little garden out the back is lovely, the food is great along with the service, and it's eye wateringly good value. If you're thinking of going to Pizza Express anytime soon, seriously give yourself a slap and go here instead, it's ace.

Good local businesses need support, this one is no different. They also do breakfast which although I've never had I intend to, and for lunch one of their salads or starters would fill all but the greediest of buggers. For us, there's pizza or pasta.

Go to La Piola, you'll love it.