Les Deux Pizza Bar – Cocktails and Pizza, a magic blend! #Blog

Stephen Wundke
28th February 2020

It’s hard to stand out in today’s world of business, surely whatever it is we have seen it all before. We see thousands of new ideas get funded almost daily, many of them extremely quirky and almost all of them seem like a good idea to those who created them but most simply don’t make it.

Why? Because mostly they aren’t very good.  The hard nosed statistic from the hospitality sector is that for every 10 restaurants that opened in the last year, only 4 of those will still be here in another 2 years. So, with every new restaurant opening and all the attendant publicity and enthusiasm, you can’t help thinking  – is this one of the four that will make it or not?

My guess after our meal at Les Deux, in Alderley Edge is that this one will be around for a while.

The owners have looked at who has disposable income (that tends to be young millennials) and then thought what do they universally like to eat?  The answer they came up with was Pizza.

What do they like to drink? – these days it’s cocktails.

And out of that sound piece of thinking came a perfect target market and Les Deux Pizza Bar was born.

There is of course a lot more to it than just picking two popular things and building a business around it and that has clearly been taken on by everyone involved. You see the thing about millennials is, yes, they do have money but they are without doubt the most astute generation in terms of their spend.

They want quality, they want service, they want to buy in to the company ethos and they want to know they are not hurting anyone or anything in supporting a business. They are the very first ethical generation and there is a lot more to come. All of these things the owners of Les Deux are aware of.

You arrive at this modest café restaurant on the Alderley Edge High St, just down from the railway station and immediately it feels friendly. Abigail, the GM and her staff simply ooze class with their care and attention to detail, without ever being stuffy or over the top. They smile and disarm even the hardest of critics. The décor is simple without being all cold and minimalist and the Gozney pizza oven is visible from almost everywhere in the restaurant, the white surrounds of the oven, set off by the logs burning at the centre, enhancing the warm glow created by the staff.

We were offered the cocktail menu as we sat down. I chose the Pornstar Martini, which consisted of Vodka, Passoa, vanilla, pineapple and a decent shot of prosecco. Cocktails are all about balance and this worked perfectly. Jake chose, on the recommendation of Patricia, the Smokey Blackberry and Basil Margarita and he loved it. You could still taste the tequila but you had the sharpness and sweetness of the blackberry and that freshness of the basil to set it off perfectly. If you are going to do cocktails as one of your core products you better do it well and these were an excellent start.

The food menu is not complicated and whilst it draws on the Mediterranean, it also crosses over in to North Africa with some of its influences and that I love.  We could see the size and quality of pizzas as they came out of the oven, so we decided to share a starter.

An aptly named Devils Heart Burrata was superb. The mozzarella ball was infused with spicy red, n’duja paste and served on wafer thin Pane carasau, bread, that had been brushed with chimichurri and smoked peppers. This is a fabulous starter and it was a lovely treatment of mozzarella where I find it can sometimes be just a bit too “samey”. You need again a delicate balance because I want to taste the mozzarella but it isn’t a strong flavour. To much interference of the other ingredients and the mozzarella gets swamped. There was 40 years between myself and my dinner guest and we both loved this starter.

There are choices other than Pizza for your main course but clearly, if you go to a place that will live or die on the quality of its pizzas then you are going to order pizza – we did. They have the traditional pizzas that you would expect under the heading of “Classic” so there will be something even the fussiest eater can find that they will like. They do Vegan and they do Vegetarian as well within that list.

Then there is what they describe as “Pizza/Global” and this is where we landed. You really need to take a look at this menu on line before you dine and be brave because this is where the magic happens. They have got Wagyu Pizza, Poached Peaches with Speck and Gorgonzola Pizza, Shredded Aromatic Duck Pizza and then the two we chose. I had the Lamba’da. This was slow cooked spicy lamb on a garlic butter base with a mango salsa, coriander and their own fior di latte mozzarella. The oven creates a perfect crisp, non-soggy pizza base and the chef again creates a brilliant balance of ingredients.

This was great Pizza.

Jake opted for the OH Elloooooo, which had sticky beef pieces, with truffle oil, tomato, mozzarella and Parmesan. How did I know it was good – he simply didn’t speak for 12 minutes.

Pizzas finished we opted for a dessert to share and we chose the Nutella Calzone, which comes with fresh banana and strawberries. The calzone pizza base is rolled and cooked with the Nutella inside and then served with the fruit and a scoop of Vanilla ice cream. Abigail insisted we accompany this with an Espresso Martini- so we did. This vodka based martini, with a shot of espresso and a lovely creamy foam topping was a fabulous accompaniment to our dessert.

They are called Les Deux Pizza Bar and I guess that’s right. It is a bar that serves great cocktails and of course wines and spirits which you can enjoy at their bar and it certainly serves outstanding Pizza. I admire the ease with which the people involved in this business pull off this simple blend of two great food and drink offers. There may well be copies but in Alderley Edge this is something special for those who don’t need to spend a fortune to have food and drink that tastes great and delivers in providing a fabulous atmosphere. Well done Les Deux, you certainly deserve to be one of the 4 in 10 who really make it.

Taste Cheshire were gifted this experience by Les Deux Pizza Bar but we stand by our comments, if you don’t believe us, or even if you do, we encourage you to check it out for yourself.