This is a review of Mambo Italia, an Italian restaurant that mainly serves pizza and pasta dishes alongside drinks with a bar section. It includes details about the menu options and prices for pizzas. The review focuses on the Garden City branch, but it’s pretty much the same at all their restaurants.
Mambo Italia has 3 locations in Nairobi;
- Thika Road, Garden City Mall
- Westlands, Rivaan Centre
- Lavington, Lavington Curve
Ambiance
The atmosphere here is pretty average, but that’s actually a good thing. It’s not super fancy or bizarre, but it’s got a nice, cozy feel with lots of wooden stuff everywhere. Everything kind of follows a theme, like being in a cozy cabin or Spongebob’s house.
The wood tables, chairs, walls—everything’s made of wood! It’s not the fanciest place around, but it’s got a nice, comfortable atmosphere if you are into rustic vibes.
Mambo Italia Pizza Menu
Pizza Review
Mambo Italia has one of the best pizzas in Nairobi, and it is the best to others, It offers gourmet pizza and not your average fast food pizza like whatever they sell at Pizza Inn.
For this review, I went with the 12” carnivore pizza and washed it down with a giant glass of beer.
The pizza here is the light airy and fluffy kind, so yeah you can’t get full here even by eating this whole thing.
I actually went home to cook again because this wasn’t it to call it dinner, it’s not good value for money I would say, but does it taste incredible? Yes!
While pizza crust that is dense and chewy is not classy, the light and fluffy crust from Mambo Italia doesn’t fill you up, at the end you will be feeling hungry and now even more broke thanks to the -KSh 1,600 or more. This is some Burger King type of energy.
Read: Is Burger King in Kenya Really That Terrible?
But hey, this signature light crust is normally attained by cold-fermenting the pizza dough for days in a fridge. The big air bubbles are attained by cooking quickly at a higher temperature than normal. You can’t duplicate this because your home oven probably won’t heat as much as required.
The high heat is evident in the charring of the crust, and yes that is intentional so don’t think the pizza is burnt.
The flour used to attain the bubbly crust is normally high in gluten, lurking around near the kitchen, I saw they use some serious artisan flours from Italy, Mambo Italia really goes all the way and I respect them.
Rolling pin kills the air bubbles, so I guess they hand toss their doughs, overall I would say this is close to the artisan level of pizza making; as almost every aspect of the Naepolean approach has been adhered to, including the use of a wood fire oven, (which I’m not sure about but would guess so)
Now toppings, they are evenly distributed all across especially at the centers, the edges don’t have toppings and it makes sense because here is where all the bubble goodness occurs.
From the menu, this carnivore pizza is a red pizza. They also have white pizza menus, the difference is the sauce used to bond the toppings to the crust. Red pizzas use tomato sauce while white ones use cheese sauce.
The carnivore pizza has dough tomato sauce and following as toppings;
- Mozzarella Cheese
- Beef
- Chicken
- Ham
- Spicy Salami
- Bacon
- Garlic
- Onion
- Coriander
With all these toppings, you expect this pizza to be loaded, but no it isn’t. The quantities of each are bare minimum and somehow stingy, especially the mozzarella.
The only generous thing is the ham which you get in every bite, I don’t remember tasting any chicken or beef here, the quantities are just too small to notice.
While I understand it is all to keep the cost down, the price tag for this isn’t that cheap.
Perhaps the better thing than the actual taste of this pizza is the texture, everything is just near perfect.
The dough is light and bubbly means it’s soft, and the combination of that many ingredients makes all flavors burst in your mouth.
Onions and bacon are crunchy while the majority of the rest of the toppings are soft, especially the ham and salami, the cheese and tomato sauce bind it all to the crust and add moisture to the overall pizza experience.
It is all good you really don’t need to have a drink nearby unlike all those other pizzas that are a choking hazard.
While the pizza is generally decent, I will give more credit to the crust, it is the best thing about Mambo Italia’s pizzas, soft on the top but firm on the base
The base is firm and holds well despite this being a thin-crust pizza, it’s not as soggy as I expected at all which is impressive again.
While not soggy, the pizza slices are delicate and flop around so it’s not easy to eat them compared to those fast food chains’ cardboard-tasting pizzas
Read: The 20 Popular Fast Food Chains in Kenya Reviewed
To wash it down, I got some beer here. Can’t remember if it was a draft beer or a craft one, all I remember is this glass cost KSh 275 during the happy hour which is half the standard price.
Originally fancied a pizza and a margarita, because I’m all about trying weird combos; but the waitress gave me the side-eye, saying it was a tad too “girly.” This was her just trying to be nice instead of telling me the truth: “You are a weirdo.”
That was all for the LoLz, I went with beer as originally planned, and beer with pizza is the best combo, should try it if you haven’t!
Speaking of the waitress, the service here is excellent, surprisingly, didn’t have to wait that long for the pizza, I was happy to wait up to 30 minutes but it surprisingly came in under 10!
Speedy service is not the only good thing here, the waiters and waitresses are attentive and you get almost that personalized service, but not to the tune of a fancy restaurant where they worship you so that you feel less guilty for overspending on some basic food. Just excellent service at Mambo Italia I’d say.
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