Before putting word to papers - or bits to bytes, it has to be conceded that this month's review is incomplete. Because, when you claim that somewhere is 'the best' you really need to have reviewed all close rivals, and I have been remiss.
 
But more about this later.

Selling pizza is to catering what popcorn is to cinemas - relatively easy to do with massive profit margins between the raw materials and sale price.

You don't have to worry about the price of beef or goat for your burger or curry. Flour, water, tomatoes and cheese and then a thin topping if anything that can be chopped up and Roberto is your mother's brother.

OK flour has gone up in cost and furnaces require energy but compared to anything else, pizza is still a great business model if you get it right, hence the popularity of the food all over the world.

The trouble is everyone knows this and therefore you have competition from behemoths like Dominos and Papa John's all the way through to tens of franchisees with dollars in their eyes.

There are also similar alternatives - the pide of the Middle East, which you can experience at Hala or the Bakery House, and of course naan bread with its stuffing and toppings. Whatever its pedigree, everyone loves a pizza.


It's half term and my nine year old niece and six year old nephew are over to stay a few days.

Now my niece is the light of my life, but boy is she a fussy eater. In terms of hot food she eats chips, broccoli and Margherita pizza (without oregano or basil). She is vegetarian from an early age in a very meat eating Celtic/French family, but before you worry too much about her, she loves most fruit, cucumbers, raw carrots, peas and sweetcorn. But nothing on her pizza.

I have taken her places where she has left all of her Margherita, or picked out every oregano flake by fork or just loved the pizza. (incidentally it's thought that his pizza is named after the Queen of Italy who visited Naples and popularised this dish all over Italy.)

And you know how you crave approval from the youngsters around you - as well as a dear life ? Well, there is nothing like a Papa Gee margherita pizza. Millie isn't just happy with her Papa Gee pizzas. She actually asks to come for a sleepover from Wokingham just to be able to order it. 

Her brother is equally particularly, but about his pepperoni. (When we gave his sister veggie Harribos he insisted that he wanted 'meaty Harribos'. You get the drift.)

My wife is a baker, but loves Dominos with bacon, mushrooms and onions. But she also insisted that we buy one of those very expensive outside pizza ovens last year, which rarely got used in our sodden summer. But, she also loves pizza. As long as it has mushrooms, onions and bacon on it.

Me, well I'm a Sophia Loren kinda guy. Yes, lots on top and hot - as if you hadn't worked out that one for yourselves.

So let me state already that the four of us luuuurv Papa Gee. The dough, the cheese and the tomato paste are all spot on.

Pizza dough is something that you can have arguments about around the world that would rival religious or political discussions. In Chicago it's deep pan, xxxxxx

Then there are toppings. In Naples you will find a few selections with a mere handful of ingredients, pineapple probably not being amongst them.. but the modern trend has been to fully load Mexican and Mighty Meayies with anything edible.

I remember eating my first bacon and egg pizza on the South Bank back in 1987, and very good it was too.

Let's face it, if it goes with bread and cheese, it works.

Being an uncultured, uncouth Northern European who was once lectured for fifteen minutes by a waiter in Italy for drinking cappuccino after lunch (in my own office in Rome), I, of course, love a hot pizza. And there is nothing like the Sophia Loren. (Although the Tony Curtis might be more appropriate - Some Like It Hot and this pizza has a bite, along with the lovely pepperoni, meatballs and perhaps not quite enough red onoin and mushrooms).



Without doubt, Papa Gee's mostly produce the best pizzas in Reading.

So why is this review incomplete ? Well, I still haven't tried Sarv's Slice in the Biscuit Factory that everyone is raving about.

Expect an update soon on inReading.

And the name ? Well, it seems that Gee is Gaetano, the papa magician responsible for these wonderful dics of dough. And certainly not to be confused with papa John.