I am rather partial to a pizza, but sometimes I don’t want a whole one. As such the NYC style of just a piece of pie to eat in or take away seems to me to be a rather fine way to meet my pizza needs without totally carb’ing out.

West Pizza is located in the shiny new “Laundry Quarter“. Personally, I am amazed that Cardiff’s love affair with “quarters” is still undimmed.

With the state of the Mermaid Quay down the Bay (at least when I was last down there) perhaps that could be renamed after Saudi Arabia’s “Empty Quarter“. Here, with West Pizza’s NYC style of eating on offer, perhaps the full monty “the Quarter Quarter” would be more appropriate.

I would say it is in Canton, but other (mainly people trying to sell their houses and their estate agents) would say Pontcanna (which like the blob inexorably keeps on expanding and they will no doubt eventually just rename the whole of South Wales “Greater Pontcanna“).

Back to West Pizza, the inside it is a fair bit bigger than it looks from the outside

and there must be sitting around the back as people kept on appearing from there.

At first blush, the pizza slices looked to be of a gratifyingly large size (they were the reason for my visit)

and whilst the whole pizzas may seem  pricey they are absolutely huge 18 inches (so about this big 👌😉)

It is not just pizza either, with some interesting looking filled focaccia,

a house salad (thankfully no fries – loathe the pizza and fries combo) and sweet treats (cinnamon buns looked particularly nice).

I was, however, there for lunch and what better for lunch than a slice of pizza.

I tend to like to keep it pretty simple with a pizza (begone, foul sprawn of the Devil, pineapple) and whilst the Delme (fennel sausage 🤤) was certainly tempting, I am a sucker for a pepperoni pizza. Ticks all the boxes if you ask me.

Here for you £3.75 slice price, you get a fulsome wedge with no stinting on the all important pepperoni (here the good stuff, not the abomination you find in Tesco et al).

Really nice flavour, with a good (not over applied, can’t stand a drenched pizza) tomato sauce and a decent level of cheese coverage.

Good crust on the outer rim

and I personally like a bit of (but not too much) char (this was within acceptable parameters).

No soggy bottom here either, with an even bake,

but enough flex to allow for the mandatory fold to insert into the gaping maw.

On the drinks front there is booze, with local beers from Twt Lol and Crafty Devil (prices seem very reasonable, with the Twt Lol beer retailing for £4 and costing £5 to buy in here) and house white and red wines (not sure what they are – barbera or sangioviese for the red and fiano for the white would be my choices).

Because it was a damp and cold March lunchtime, I had a coffee (cortado – £3.30)

Nice, if just a tad milky (should be equal parts steamed milk and espresso, with a double shot of the latter) for my tastes.

Soft drinks are not your usual soda suspects,

which is nice to see.

On a subsequent visit, with J and the dogs (they are dog friendly in the day – probably not after our visit, with Oscar being a total arse when any other dog had the temerity  to enter the place) bought further slices of the Ray (pepperoni – bigger than on my first visit) and the New Yorker (pastrami, gherkin and American mustard – £4.00).

A Delme (fennel sausage and pickle pepper -£4) was also pretty good from the sliver J  left me.

Out of the three, the pepperoni was my clear favourite.

In the interests of research, we also tried one of the focaccia (the pastrami) on the specials menu.

Less enamoured with this than the pizza slices, if I am honest. I liked the idea (hence the order), but execution was bit off to me.

It was all a bit to big to eat without uphinging the jaw and I thought there was too much acidity in the form of copious amounts of dijon mustard and saurkraut that was not balanced out by the pastrami or Swiss cheese (actually not sure there was any of the latter – possibly all in J’s half). What should have been the star of the show, the Trealy Farm pastrami, was somewhat lost in the mix (shame that). I would also have preferred the focaccia to have been warm.

The verdict

Cracking addition to the Canton (ain’t Pontcanna in my book – maybe Pontcanton) food scene, with nicely proportioned and well flavoured pizza slices.

Slice sizes are a bit pot luck (at least based on my visits so far).

You win some, you lose some I suppose, but even the smaller one was a good size.

Personally I not sure they need the focaccia sarnies on the menu, with pizzas being their clear forte and the name of the game to my mind.

Service was a touch flakey. On two visits an item (cortado on the first and the pastrami focaccia in the second) was forgotten and had to be re – requested. Just teething issues, I suspect, as processes are bedded in.

Can see me visiting this place quite often (free 2 hours parking in Grey Street carpark makes it easy to nip down of a lunch time). Saw someone popping in to this place after a visit to Oriel Jones. Nice double header that, which could be made up to a rather fine triple header by adding a bottle from Wine Fiends in Corp Market.

The details

Address:  60 Glynne Street, Cardiff, CF11 9NS

Website: https://www.west.pizza/