Base Face Pizza was created by Tim Thornton, a trained jazz musician who lost his income due to the pandemic and so pivoted to delivering pizzas across Chiswick and Hammersmith with the help of his wife.
Thornton uses a pizza base created to have a very low GI that's made with a mix of 00 flour blended and tritordeum flour (a grain bred from wild barley and durum wheat), and proved for 48 hours.
Alongside classics such as the Marinara pizza, the menu features options including the Peppergine with burnt green pepper crema, roast aubergine, olives, tomato, oregano, basil and olive oil; Truffle shuffle with mushroom and truffle crema, mixed wild mushrooms, mozzarella, parmesan and olive oil; and N’duja love me featuring Cobble Lane n’duja, stichelton blue, parmesan, tomato, maple syrup, oregano and olive oil.
'Signature' dishes, meanwhile, in the Cheeky Pineapple with crispy cured pig cheek, roast pineapple, red onion jam, black pepper, mozzarella, parmesan, basil and olive oil; a 'crowd-pleasing' pleasing tiramisu, available in 'classic' or with pistachio; and a side of balsamic aioli that's intended for dipping in pizzas slices or leftover crusts.
Wines are from the Paola Tich and her team at Vindinista in Acton, and listed on the menu by 'Good', 'Better', and 'Best'.
"The last 12 months have decimated my music career, but they’ve given me incredible impetus to create Base Face," says Thornton.
"It’s one of those classic stories: I could never find a pizza I really loved locally, I had an Ooni [pizza oven] in my back garden and a sudden glut of time on my hands, worked hard to create a dough that was lighter than your classic sourdoughs or Neapolitan pizzas, and researched British ingredients till I found ones I was really happy with.
"Friends and neighbours were the initial customers, the first two months I was giving the pizzas away and asking that people donated £5 from each pizza to the NHS Charities, and it’s blown up since then, with pop-up residencies, farmers markets and even supplying pizzas to a whole jazz club at Kansas Smitty’s last year, bringing my food and music lives full circle.
"It’s amazing what you can do in the face of adversity and I cannot wait to show my customers new and old how lovely my pizzas are. I’m very proud of them.”
