Pizzeria Alla Torre

by Raphael Seghin
on Friday, September 30, 2011 12:00 AM

The popular Brazilian barbeque chain, Latina, with several outlets throughout Shanghai, have been quite successful in the last 5 years. Alla Torre, which could be considered Latina's sister restaurant, is sometimes overshadowed by her noisier relative. Owned and managed by the Shanghai worldwide development group, Alla Torre's two current branches each specialize on a specific niche; the one in Lujiazui is for fine Italian dining, while Pizzeria Alla Torre in Grand Gateway's ‘food street', as the name suggests, focuses on pizza.

Opened about a year ago, Pizzeria Alla Torre was literally carved out of a rarely used, left-side chunk of Latina. Perhaps the people at SWD group realized it made more sense to have two restaurants in the same location, catering to different tastes and preferences. After all, not many of us have time during the week to afford the type of marathon lunches needed to get the most out of Latina, and Alla Torre is well aware of this.

The venue is clean and well-lit, with an open kitchen and an imported pizza oven. A good portion of the available seating is actually outdoors, which is perfect for the autumn months, but perhaps less so during the extreme temperatures of winter and summer. Enlarged photographs depicting scenes of Italian life decorate the wall.

The menu leans towards more accessible dishes, ie: dishes that are quick to prepare and suited towards the lunch menu crowds, like their paninis, as well as more ‘Americanized' options, such as chicken wings (RMB58) or deep-fried meatballs (RMB68). The real draw, of course, is their pizzas, all served on wooden handles. Besides classics such as the Margharita (RMB68) and Quattro Formaggi (RMB98) pizzas, it's the more specialized options, such as the Diavola (RMB68), simply prepared with pepperoni, oregano and chili oil, or the rectangular Ferrari (RMB118) with buffalo mozzarella, parma ham, porcini mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and balsamic vinaigrette which are the main draws. The menu changes every 3 months, with manager Andrew Lu personally adding and removing each dish according to popularity. Should your favorite pizza mysteriously disappear from the menu, however, the whole back page of the newspaper-like menu offers the option of creating your own.

With popular Italian restaurant Da Marco literally two stores down, Alla Torre has their work cut out for them. While each particular individual will obviously have his preference, Alla Torre does provide a solid lunch option with affordable lunch sets, as well as offering quite the range of different appetizers, mains, and of course, pizzas.