Neapolitan Pizza Specialists Move Into Notoriously Difficult Dining Development

Borough Neapolitan pizzeria O’ Ver will open its second London pizza restaurant in St. James’s Market, on the old Anzu site. Anzu, the spin-off restaurant from Tonkotsu that was converted into a ramen residency, closed in January after the initial two-month residency became a year-long takeover. CODE founder Adam Hyman posted the opening to his Instagram earlier today.

O’ Ver’s signature is its use of seawater in its pizza dough, a practice also adopted by Fed, in Dalston, which closed last winter. A concise pizza menu covers marinara, margherita, and capricciosa classics, as well as a cinque formaggi, rather than the traditional ‘quattro.’ Its first restaurant, on Southwark Street, received a positive review from Marina O’Loughlin in 2016, in which its pizzas are described as “doozies — blistered crust as pillowy as marshmallow.”

St. James’s Market has proven to be a tricky location for restaurateurs — Veneta, from the then Salt Yard Group recently acquired by Urban Pubs and Bars — closed after just a year citing problems with the location; the owners of Ikoyi, newly Michelin-starred and one of London’s most captivating restaurants, have admitted in the past that the restaurant was close to going under. Anzu, too, did not take off in its original format, hence Tonkotsu’s reversion to a familiar model.

Adam Hyman/Instagram

O’ Ver, however, is the most ‘straightforward,’ perhaps, of the restaurants cited, and therefore may find its proposition easier to sell.