Forbici Preview

Any new pizza offering in Manchester needs to be truly good and present something different if it's to find success, simply because we have so much quality pizza of all styles across the city, so standing out amongst the crowd isn't an easy feat. 

But newly launched Forbici have their package just right. Featuring their signature Biga dough which carries a 5.0pH, with 12 hours of prooving at 24c.  The result is a super light crust, loaded with flavour. 

And as per the Forbici name, scissors are provided to slice your pizza which is a novelty that we were initially sceptical about, but it actually works since a knife or pizza cutter can sometimes deflate the crust's air pockets.  Scissors however allow for a clean cut without compressing or damaging the structure of the dough.  It's all about the details!

Forbici's menu is truly pizza focused and contains all the classics, complemented with a compact yet quality selection of nibbles and sides.  There's also a few snacks on offer to partner with the pizzas, so it was only our duty to oblige and explore them a bit.

Frittatina Carbonara (£4), which was reminiscent of a great quality mac and cheese ball, only loaded with the flavours of Carbonara rather than simply cheese.  Super crunchy, great pasta, and a stunning sauce with tons of the gooey interior which you'd expect.  We could have eaten a bowl of these.

Panzerotti (£3) was more crumbed/deep-fried joy and was the Neapolitan version of this classic rather than the half-moon shaped variant which populates most of Italy.  Think a ball of mashed potatoes tempered with copious amounts of cheese and then bread crumbed and deep fried to a golden hue, topped with more grated cheese.  Indulgent and delicious.

But we came for the pizzas and that infamous dough, and that's exactly what we received next.  The Cetara Pizza is topped with San Marzano tomato, anchovies, black olives, capers, garlic, oregano & micro parsley. 

A chat with staff revealed that the anchovies are flown in from Cetara itself; a stunning little town on the Amalfi Coast, which is famous for its anchovies, with one restaurant there being world renowned for the product.  So Forbici don’t mess about when it comes to produce quality or provenance.

The specials board contains a couple of rotating options, and we thought it wise to give one a test drive aside from the more traditional offering above. 

Now a Lancashire Hotpot Pizza would perhaps raise a few eyebrows in Naples, but it was absolutely delicious.  That same textbook base/crust, topped with lamb ragu and caramelised onions, finished with layers of golden potatoes.  It's as naughty as it sounds, so treat yourself!

Moving onto the sweet offerings, and Pistamisu is a mash up of the two single most viral sweet-based items on the planet at the moment; Tiramisu and Pistachio with a cheesecake spin.  A generously portioned jar with all the components of everybody's Italian favourite dessert, layered up on a biscuity based ready for you to dive into with a spoon.  Delicious.

But despite the current dining room obsession with Tiramisu, I'm a huge fan of Canoli and luckily Forbici's is a winner.  The Sicilian icon is a desert that you just can't go wrong with.  A perfectly crisp shell filled with sweet ricotta.  Here, one end is adorned with pistachio and the other with chocolate, so you get two flavours in one!  Bravo!

So Forbici is a welcome new addition to the city centre.  The pizza is great, it's set in a prime location, the staff are lovely and it's great value for money too.  And the scissors thing really isn't just a novelty; it really does work and makes perfect sense.  We say that Forbici is a cut above most pizzerias in town.

** Our experience was gratefully comped **