Restaurant review: Little Wing pizzeria, Lisburn Road
Posted: 10 January '12 by Niall
Little Wing pizzeria
If you’re anything like us, pizza makes a fairly frequent appearance in your house, whether you’re making it yourself or getting a take-away. The rich tomato base, the milky mozzarella and whichever toppings your heart desires, it’s perfect fast food.
Belfast hasn’t been blessed with too many decent pizzerias, though, so it took us a while to get the enthusiasm up to try Little Wing pizzeria.
The pizzas (or pizze) you’ll get at Little Wing are “Naples style”, so it’s thin crust and wood stone oven baked all the way here, folks.
The chain now has restaurants in Bangor and on the Newtownards Road, Ann Street and the Lisburn Road in Belfast. We went to the latter – and one visit was all it took for us to regret waiting so long before we did!
The starters
Ever since I made our own Panzanella, Kelly has been a big fan of the Italian bread salad, so when the Insalata Panzanella was spotted on the menu, any further debate ended. Although Little Wing’s salad wasn’t exactly like ours, it was still very tasty – the ciabatta croutons with olives, red onion and cos lettuce tossed in sherry vinegar made for a fresh, sharp and really moreish mouthful.
For myself, the Bruschetta di Funghi leapt off the page – I can’t resist mushrooms! The flame-grilled Portobellos sat on a thick, toasted slice of ciabatta and were served with parsley, garlic and parmesan. Just like the Panzanella, it doesn’t sound that fancy, but that’s probably what makes it so good – simple food that lets the flavours do the talking.
Tasty as it was, we didn’t come to a pizzeria to eat salad and bruschetta – on to the main event!
The pizzas
Little Wing’s pizzas are 10 inches in diameter – although you can go for a whopping 24 inch option – and delivered to your table with your own pizza-cutter, choice of oils, extra parmesan and flaked chilli.
Kelly chose one of the specials, the Pollo e Pancetta, and decided to add an egg to the chicken, pancetta, basil and chilli oil for good measure. The pizza crust was thin, crisp and tasty, and the combination of toppings were just as good.
In my humble opinion, my own Palle di Carne, a fiery mixture of spiced meatballs, red onions, jalapeno, rocket and chilli oil, couldn’t have been bettered: The heat wasn’t too much, just a little spice in the background which didn’t overshadow any of the other flavours; the crumbled meatballs were melt-in-the-mouth tender but still meaty; and the freshness of the rocket really set the whole thing off.
| Starters: | |
|---|---|
| Insalata Panzanella | £4.50 |
| Bruschetta di Funghi | £3.50 |
| Mains: | |
| Chicken and Pancetta Special – with egg | £10.10 |
| Palle di Carne | £9.95 |
| Sundries: | |
| San Pellegrino sparkling orange | £2.25 |
| Peroni 660mls | £5.95 |
| Total: | £36.25 |
Final thoughts
The restaurants all seem to have the same dark-timber decor and relaxed vibe going on, the restaurants are very child-friendly, and the staff are friendly and chatty – so it’s an easy place to sit in and enjoy your food.
The starters were really good, but the pizzas were great – good dough, cooked in that great wood stone oven and with quality toppings which delivers a more sophisticated flavour than you might expect from a pizza – and for a very reasonable price, too.
Now, I’ll admit to wondering whether an unaccompanied 10 inch pizza would be enough for an evening meal, but we’ve yet to even read the dessert menu – although the Stromboli does sound great, come to think of it..
We’ve been back to Little Wing a few times now, and we’ve ordered the same dishes – that’s how good we thought it was!
For us, if you’re going out for pizza in Belfast, it has to be Little Wing.
Little Wing – Lisburn Road
322 Lisburn road,
Belfast
BT9 6GH
T: 028 9066 6000
E: hello@littlewingpizzeria.com
W: www.littlewingpizzeria.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/littlewingpizza
Facebook: www.facebook.com/littlewingpizzeria
You can also find Little Wing – Lisburn Road on Google Maps
The Palle di Carne pizza at Little Wing
More information
We do like businesses with a conscience, and Little Wing seem to wear their heart on their sleeve.
Here are 5 things we didn’t know about little wing:
- Little Wing pizzas claim to be the healthiest pizzas around: no additives here!
- All of their tasty toppings are 100% traceable.
- Little Wing is committed to the community and support local schools and charities.
- All of their coffee is organic, fair trade and has the Rain Forest Alliance seal of approval.
- As Little Wing branches out, they have planted 2,000 trees for every new restaurant that has opened.
Tags: belfast restaurants, bill wolsey, favourite local restaurant, italian food, pizza, restaurant review
Categories: Restaurant Reviews
