Anyone who’s enjoyed a night out at Kosmonaut will have no doubt been excited to see the team behind that particular NQ favourite expand their collection of venues with a new space on Lever Street, Ply.
The emphasis is on keeping things simple with fresh, tasty ingredients, although there is one ostentatious element to the food, as the pizzas are cooked in a bespoke mirrored oven imported especially from Naples. It’s quite a sight, like a mutated disco ball, and it doesn’t half knock out a bad pizza. It’s not all about the dough though, there’s also a tempting array of antipasti and a drinks menu taking in an excellent selection of craft beers and cocktails.
To that end we thought it best to start things off with a couple of stiff drinks and chose the acapulco with tapatio tequila, watermelon and pink grapefruit, the fruit giving that tequila the perfect foil. An up in smoke was equally impressive, joining bourbon and rye and rather intriguingly bacon and chocolate, I’m sure they must sell a fair few of them.
We then enjoyed a couple of salads before getting a pizza the action. Breasola, rocket, radicchio, parmesan, lemon dressing and capers, stalk on, was delicious but then slightly shown up by the coppa ham and burrata. It’s not something I’ve tried before and all I can say is thank you Ply for introducing me to burrata. Half mozzarella, half cream need I say more? Probably not the salad to choose if you’re going for the beach bod rather than the dad bod but that stuff is seriously tasty.
On to the those pizzas, which all come on a tangy sourdough base, we chose the ‘nduja, topped with rocket, red peppers and spicy ‘nduja sausage. It’s a kind of fiery spreadable pork paste and definitely needed a beer or two to dampen that heat, The Kernel table beer and Beaver town gamma ray did that job pretty well. The artichoke and pig’s cheek pizza was more of a smoky affair but just as impressive. To complete that Italian feast there’s also a selection of home made ice creams, although we didn’t partake this time.
With exhibitions, workshops and a whole host of other events going on, Ply’s got a really nice atmosphere about it, and there’s also a summery lunch menu worth investigating further. Bottom line though with that disco pizza oven turning out food like we were served up, they won’t far wrong.
