Restaurant review: Coalition, Rosebank

I thought there was no space in Joburg for yet another pizzeria. How wrong I was, writes Andrea Burgener

The trend for restaurants to offer everything and the kitchen sink seems never-ending, despite history showing us it rarely pans out well.

"Something for everyone" (usually a mix of sushi, pasta, pizza, generic salads and seafood) is a sure path to mediocrity. How could it not be?

And even within genres, the tendency to create a menu as long as the Old Testament stays with us. Local Italianate menus invariably involve an encyclopaedic list of pizzas, pastas and salads. Curiously, the longer the list, the less seems enticing. What difference do all these topping options make anyway, when the tomato base is tasteless or acid, the cheese industrial wax, the herbs dried and the crust akin to a savoury scone or giant matzos?

A better product, not more choice, is what we need. Coalition, a tiny pizzeria in lower Rosebank, is a life raft in this sea of overload. It's a small, plain, stylish space with a mercifully short menu. It offers three salads, eight pizza "flavours", three great aperitifs (including the essential Americano) and three simple, well executed desserts (tiramisu, panna cotta and affogato).

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Jo'burg's pizzerias generally fall into two main categories: the extremely thin crust style, and the thicker, doughier one (made popular by American deep-dish offerings, but in fact very popular in Italy too, made with correctly proven dough).

Although Naples is the birthplace of pizza, the Neapolitan style, which doesn't fall neatly into either category, is not much featured locally. The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana's regulations for what determines an authentic Neapolitan pizza are famously rigorous and even nonsensical once you start making the pizza outside of Naples.

Coalition's definition doesn't include the strictures of all ingredients being from the Campania area (understandably), or of Neapolitan referring only to two types: Marinara (tomato, garlic, herbs and no cheese at all) or a Margherita. Never mind; the spirit is there and, most importantly, these pizzas are damn good. The dough - well proved and made from fine 00 flour - is delicious all on its own, and forms the puffed and charred border which marks a true Neapolitan pizza.

I'd stick with the classic Margherita, which showcases the mild, fresh tomato base and home-made mozzarella best. For me, the other topping options are unnecessary.

The House Salad is blissful, too - home-made burrata (a ball composed of a mozzarella shell enclosing a softer curd and cream interior), artichoke, prosciutto and rocket - one of the most heavenly meals I've had in ages. I thought there was no space for yet another pizzeria in town. How very wrong I was.

• Coalition is just off the corner of Bolton Road and Jan Smuts Avenue, 011-900-4987.

This article was originally published in The Times.