From airy dough and milky mozzarella to burnt basil and sour tomatoes, the quality of own-brand margheritas varies wildly. Over the past decade, the market in chilled supermarket pizzas has ballooned, perceived as the thin and crispy connoisseur’s choice and far preferable to frozen. But do any of them really rival restaurant quality? We called in the margheritas to find out.
The Pizza Express margherita, despite boasting it hasn’t changed since 1965, was a disappointment. Despite generous quantities of mozzarella and tomatoes, the toppings look and taste parsimonious. The tomato sauce is spread so thinly it fails to assert itself, and the base lacks any vibrant flavour. This one-dimensional slice is all about sweet, if meek, mozzarella. 4/10
M&S’s rectangular beast looked terrific, but the promising toppings cling together in big, unedifying lumps. The middle is a quagmire of buffalo mozzarella that offers only a distant echo of milky freshness. The wildly sweet, sharply tart “marinated sunkissed tomatoes” dominate any mouthful they appear in. The tomato sauce is not bad, albeit in a flat, muffled, jarred-pasta-sauce way, but there needs to be more of it to titivate a thick, bready base. 5/10
The Co-op’s 12in pizza was a cut above, with a semolina-dusted base that is crisp but pliable. It tastes of something, albeit baked crackers. The toppings – well-judged SunBlush cherry tomatoes, mozzarella with good elastic resistance and a pronounced flavour, a relatively sprightly tomato sauce – come together via some strident seasoning in fine style. An acceptable slice. 7/10
Waitrose’s offering looked handsome but reprised the Co-op’s mistakes. Three mozzarella pearls melt into sickly pools that taste cheap and feel plasticky, while pieces of semi-dried tomato are unpleasant in their weirdly exaggerated sweet and sour flavour. The supplementary mozzarella is far cheesier, and the base is light, if not crisp enough. Overall, this yo-yos between bland and big mouthfuls of unpalatable gunk. 4/10
The winner was a 10in pizza that didn’t look all that but was very tasty. The toppings are evenly distributed and the cheese goes up to the edge, giving delicious browned strands around the rim. The punchy tomato sauce is well-seasoned. The base is airy and crispy, yet still foldable – almost paper-thin in the middle. Clearly designed by a pizza aficionado, if you ate this in a high street pizzeria, you would leave well satisfied. 8/10
