SHEX Reviews: Pizza Marzano (Xintiandi)

On the corner of Shanghai's premier shopping center, Xintiandi, is also one of the city's best pizza shops. Pizza Marzano is the kind of place you'll find top-quality ingredients put on top of everyone's favorite finger food. Ingredients like spiced pomodoro sauce, smoky pancetta, and aromatic Peking Duck. It's a thin pizza, light sauce. But like Picasso artwork in your living room, there really isn't a need for any other decoration, just feature the best ingredients.

And that's exactly what Pizza Marzano does. The restaurant is a spin-off of a British company, called Pizza Express, which wanted to bring authentic Italian pizza to London. The oven in the first Pizza Express wa imported straight from Rome, and a global pizza chain began. Pizza Marzano does it just as well in here in the Far East, which is one reason they are about to open their third location in Shanghai (Surpass Court, Unit 111, 570 Yongjia Road, 200031). The SHEX crew went down to Xintiandi to find out how Pizza Marzano stacks up against heavy competition in the city, and we've compiled a few menu items that are worth a try. Let us know what you think!

Peking Duck Pizza

By: Mike Finstad

Pizza Marzano's signature dish, available only in Shanghai and Hong Kong, is their phenomenal Peking Duck pizza. Sweet hoisen sauce is mixed with soft roasted Peking Duck, creating a fantastic Asian twist on pizza. The dish is rounded out with chili and shreds of spring onions. Oh, simply tasty. I've had a few pizzas in my time, and I've never had anything quite like this. It's a bit pricy at 97RMB, but there is another cool thing about this pizza: for every Peking Duck pizza ordered at Pizza Marzano, 8RMB gets donated to the Chi Heng Foundation. The Chi Heng Foundation was founded to help disaffected AIDS orphans complete their educations and get placed into homes instead of orphanages. This pizza is definitely worth trying, and stacks up very well against any other pie in the city.

Mike’s Bottom Line: