Piccolo Prima Donna

If I could click my fingers and magic up a lovely little neighbourhood pizzeria, it would be pretty much identical to Piccolo Prima Donna. The restaurant is located on Norwood's main drag, Grant Avenue; from the outside it looks utterly minute... and it is, with a handful of tiny tables and a large, baying crowd of Norwoodites outside howling for pizza.

A pair of vocal locals had persuaded the proprietor of Piccolo Prima Donna to give away our (booked) table a couple of minutes before we arrived, so our party sat outside, grumpily waiting for another table to become available. On finally taking our seats twenty minutes later there was some barely-stifled squeaking and excitement from some of our party when they spotted a well-known soapie star sitting at the next table - which in a venue the size of Piccolo Prima Donna means that his elbow was practically in my lap - whispering sweet nothings to an attractive but distinctly vacuous-looking younger man.

The menu is standard pizzeria fare - pizze, pasta and a couple of salads, all christened with slightly arch, operatic names - and the pizze, when they arrived, were superb. Thin, crisp crusts with a floury, slightly burnt edge, and toppings made with top quality ingredients; bearing no relation to the flabby, wet, fatty offerings churned out by franchise chains like Domino's and Debonair's.

Service is brusque, quick and businesslike. Pizze, mineral water and two bottles of wine came to slightly over R500 + tip for five of us. The restaurant's tiny size and bustling ambience mean that it might not be my first choice for a romantic assignment, but as a destination for a group of friends, or as a local take-away it's unsurpassed.

Piccolo Prima Donna
38 Grant Avenue
Norwood
Johannesburg

Telephone: (011) 483 0089