Review | Purezza, Camden: An Entirely Vegan Pizzeria

As you may know from my Vegan Food Guide To Camden, Camden is pretty darn incredible for vegan food options. One of the latest companies to join the neighbourhood is entirely plant-based pizzeria, Purezza and I recently went along to check out their menu (and consume all of the pizza, obviously!).

Initially, Purezza was founded in Brighton back in 2015, becoming the first entirely vegan pizzeria in the UK. Despite their story starting just just three years ago, the vegan movement has boomed across the UK, which has allowed them to make a new home for their second restaurant in the UK's capital city. Located just a short walk from Camden Town station, Purezza has made itself at home amongst the flurry of other vegan eateries in the area.

The restaurant itself is tucked away on Parkway in Camden and is opposite-ish the Odeon cinema, which isn't too far from the station. Whilst the restaurant is rather small, they've made use of the light, airy space pretty well with a square bar at the front and the open kitchen sat at the back of the restaurant. There's also a small, intimate space upstairs, which is where we were seated during our meal with only a couple of other people. Purezza offers a semi-casual dining experience where the tables are made from repurposed wood, green plants line the back of the benches and cushions are available for you to sit upon but runs as a table service restaurant.

TO START:

To begin, we each ordered Purezza's signature cocktail: the Purezza Spritz. It's essentially their own take on the famous Italian favourite, Aperol Spritz, but contains Aperol, pear cider, gin, prosecco & plum juice. Albeit, slightly more alcoholic than the traditional Aperol Spritz, it was still delicious and very easy to drink.

Before tucking into our pizzas, we decided to share the Raw Cheese Platter (£12) to start, which is made up from a selection of cashew-based artisan cheeses that have been matured over 10 days and arrive in a range of flavours: acai and apricot, smoked paprika & chilli flakes, goji berry & pink peppercorn & cashew parmesan accompanied with agave syrup. It's not often I come across the chance to have a cheese board in a restaurant, even a lot of vegan ones, so I wasn't passing up the opportunity to try it. The cheeses were crumbly, creamy and we devoured the entire board within a few minutes, so suffice to say it was darn good!

MAINS & SIDES:

For our main course, we ordered two pizzas, the "Parmigiana Party" and the "Vulcano", alongside a side of mac 'n' cheese and cheesy doughballs. The mac 'n' cheese (£5) is rich, creamy and completely gluten-free. Upon arrival, the portion seems too small to share but it's so indulgent that less is more in this instance. The cheesy doughballs (£4) are packed with warm, melted cheese that oozes out as you bite into them and they're so convincingly cheesy, it's hard to believe that they're vegan!

There are a whopping ten different varieties of pizza on offer at Purezza but as mentioned above we went for the "Parmigiana Party" (£12), which is topped with smoked mozzarella, fried aubergine parmigiana, sliced seitan sausages, topped with basil leaves and a dusting of nutritional yeast + a hemp base (+ £3.50). Our second pizza, the "Vulcano" (£10), includes fried aubergines, green chilli peppers, baby sweetcorn, oven roasted romano peppers and red onions, topped with spicy sriracha sauce. I think my favourite of the two was the Parmigiana Party, but in all honesty, they were both pretty delicious! The hemp base had a slightly unusual texture and tasted a little lighter than the sourdough base. Whilst I don't think I would opt for it again over the sourdough, it made a nice change to your usual pizza. Alongside the hemp base, Purezza even offer a gluten-free base option (+ £3.50), which is a saviour for those that are GF and plant-based!

DESSERT:

Just when you think that you can't possibly eat any more pizza, you scan over the dessert menu and spot an Oreo pizza (£5.85). I mean, I wasn't leaving without trying it despite my waistband busting at the seam. The show-stopping dessert  is covered with a creamy hazelnut chocolate, topped with Oreo biscuits and drizzled with a mascarpone style sauce. It's just as gluttonous and delicious as it sounds but my eyes were definitely bigger than my belly at this point and I had to take most of the Oreo pizza home and enjoyed the rest of it the next day. And yep, I can even confirm it tasted just as good warmed up in the microwave the day after!

Find Purezza:

Address: 43 Parkway, Camden Town, London NW1 7PN
Nearest tube station: Camden Town (Northern line)

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Disclaimer: We were invited for a complimentary meal at Purezza in return for an honest review.