Restaurant review: Grano Italiano in Tsim Sha Tsui - pizzas customised

Opened last month, Grano Italiano in Tsim Sha Tsui boasts that it's the city's first pizza tailor, offering customised, made-to-order pies with techniques learned at Universita' Della Pizza, the University of Pizza, in Italy. The night we went, the shop's "pizza master" Riccardo Scalioli was overseeing the operation and making sure the pizza-building process was done correctly.

I say "build" because the 32cm circle of dough, which is made with a machine, is layered with the customer's choice of three (HK$108), six (HK$148), or eight toppings (the last two cost an additional HK$15 each). When I say topping, I mean everything that goes on the plain dough — even the marinara sauce counts as one. Each full-sized pizza comes with a soft drink which can be refilled at the bar. Ready made pizzas (HK$45 for two slices) are also available.

If we were to name the pizza we created, it would probably be the Meat Monster. Out of the range of toppings available, which includes olives, artichoke, sweet corn, several cheeses, mushrooms, smoked salmon and cured meats (although no pepperoni), we decided to put bacon, lumps of sausage and anchovies on ours.

It can be fun, especially for kids as it's hard to anticipate how your creation will taste at the end. Our pizza was a bit salty because of the anchovies, although the sun-dried tomato and parmesan cheese helped balance the flavour a bit. But nothing can really go wrong with a freshly baked pizza. Ours was ready within five minutes and the crust was delightfully crunchy and slightly chewy, and the bacon had crisped up nicely, too.

The thick-cut French fries (HK$18) were good. The lemon tarragon chicken salad (HK$42) was small and the lettuce in it wasn't exactly fresh. The dressing was forgettable.

The tomato and basil soup (HK$38) was rich and flavourful, but it was served in a paper cup with a plastic lid, even though we ate in.