Giuseppe Mascoli: Franco Manca owner and Market Row entrepreneur

[Gramsci]

I really don't get the use of the word invade in the article. Is the writer trying to piss people off? If tongue in cheek then it's s justfucking poor.

Having read the article I do not think its tongue in cheek.

 

[Thimble Queen]

Really good pizzas, but I refuse to queue to sit in Market Row. Ideal for a weekday lunch if I'm off work though.

I normally do a take away from Franco's. Can't be arsed with queue and its much cheaper, quicker, tastier etc than other local pizza take options.

 

[cuppa tee]

Good comment at the end re the late lamented Castello in the Elephant - used to love that place.

Castello was ace, now I go to Bar Lenuccia in what used to be the Union Tavern on Vassall/Camberwell Road

 

[mxh]

Good comment at the end re the late lamented Castello in the Elephant - used to love that place.

Castello were excellent pizzas, if the over powering smell of garlic didn't knock you out when you walked within 100 yards of the place, then it was a fantastic experience.

 

[uk benzo]

Castello was shit IMO. Had a lasagna there once- it was cold in the middle.

 

[happyshopper]

Castello were excellent pizzas, if the over powering smell of garlic didn't knock you out when you walked within 100 yards of the place, then it was a fantastic experience.

It didn't close, it just moved to Jamaica Road - see http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/restaurants/restaurant-8712.php Only a short distance from Bermondsey tube station.

The original Franco's was the best. I ate their once a week for a while, with noticeable results on my waistline. It sort of went off a bit when the place in Clapham opened.

 

[happyshopper]

(continued) Although from reports it seems like Castello now has a new owner and has become ordinary to poor.

 

[Ms Ordinary]

Did that have some link with Eco on Clapham High Street (not specifically asking you, fortyplus, just generally!). Always thought they did.

Think Eco started off in the market, in the spot where Franco Manca now is, then Eco opened the Clapham site & Franco Manca took over the old Eco site in the market. (They may have been more linked than that, ex-employees of one or the other).
I remember eating at Eco in the market, have never actually got round to trying Franco Manca.

 

[fortyplus]

Think Eco started off in the market, in the spot where Franco Manca now is, then Eco opened the Clapham site & Franco Manca took over the old Eco site in the market. (They may have been more linked than that, ex-employees of one or the other).
I remember eating at Eco in the market, have never actually got round to trying Franco Manca.

I thought that the original Franco's (was it the son of the original Franco?) opened Eco in Clapham, and then rebranded the Brixton place as Eco - which was a mistake - and then sold out to Mascoli. Possibly with a bankruptcy through over-borrowing for the two places along the way. But the original was definitely Franco's in Brixton.

 

[Ms Ordinary]

That sounds both more complicated & more accurate than I remember a cats cradle of linking.

The bit where Eco-that-used-to-be-Franco's became Franco-Manca-that-used-to-be Eco sounds familiar.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It's very good, but it's not quite as otherwordly as some journos and bloggers have made it out to be.

Perhaps it is otherworldly to them, especially if the come from the closed media community in Hampstead and Highgate?

 

[OvalhouseDB]

This thread is like my whole life passing before my eyes in pizza form.

I used to work for the London Bubble theatre based in Rotherhithe and we'd recover from a particularly tricksy youth group with a pizza in Castello. Then meet in Franco's early lunchtime on a Saturday. Then when it became Eco I won a free meal for two by devising and naming a new pizza in a competition advertised on the back of a Ritzy flyer. And I invited a work contact on a date for that free pizza...and he is now my partner.

 

[oryx]

This thread is like my whole life passing before my eyes in pizza form.

 

[Ol Nick]

I liked Pangaea. Or was it Pangea? Because you could sit down, in a room, and eat your pizza. An idea that seems laughably old-fashioned today.

 

[oryx]

I liked Pangaea. Or was it Pangea? Because you could sit down, in a room, and eat your pizza. An idea that seems laughably old-fashioned today.

Oooh yes, I liked Pangaea (not sure either how to spell it).

 

[ash]

This was first on the March thread. Here is my post from that thread about the article:

There is something about the Telegraph article I do not like. Its not all the journalists fault. Unless the journo has misrepresented Giuseppe Mascoli. The article looks like its based on interview with him.





Makes it sound like he is in charge of what happens in the market. If this is accurate portrayal of Mascoli and what he thinks of the market I find it unpleasant to read.

Market Row never was purely Afro Caribbean. I really hope the journalist did not get that idea from Mascoli. Though it sounds like the journo did:



I find that sentence inflammatory and offensive. As well as 100% wrong. There were units in the market with white tenants since I have been in Brixton.There has always been white people living in Brixton as well as Afro Carribean. Is it that the white people who have lived in Brixton all these years do no count as they are not thrusting entrepreneurs bringing culinary sophistication to Brixton?

A lot of the cheaper shops were run by white people. Its the shops selling cheaper goods that have been gradually pushed out.

Perhaps to downmarket to be noticed by the likes of entrepreneurs like Mascoli ?

Well said when my grandmother in law was shopping in the market in 1944 I don't suppose it was 100% exclusively Afro-Caribbean, very lazy journalism indeed.

 

[editor]

Market Row never was purely Afro Caribbean. I really hope the journalist did not get that idea from Mascoli.

Indeed. Here's a scene from 1977:


And here's how it looked in 1966:


And here's a scene outside the market from 1952:


[All images from http://landmark.lambeth.gov.uk/]

 

[tarannau]

I liked Pangaea. Or was it Pangea? Because you could sit down, in a room, and eat your pizza. An idea that seems laughably old-fashioned today.

Wasn't that where Atlantis* is now to be found, or is my memory playing tricks on me? Good place - used to split my pizza orders between that and Franco's/Ecos, with that strangely moreish lemongrass chicken number.

I've still a little bit of a soft spot for Ferndale's. I can't claim that the pizzas are in any way distinguished, but it's a likeable enough place that I've enjoyed on my few visits there. Cheap and friendly, a decent place for a meet up. It's survived for 20 odd years, which is no mean achievement in itself.

*As in the ambitiously named bar on the site of Taco Joes, sure to be a crushing disappointment. It has a sign and logo that belongs to a provincial kebab shop ffs.

 

[editor]

*As in the ambitiously named bar on the site of Taco Joes, sure to be a crushing disappointment. It has a sign and logo that belongs to a provincial kebab shop ffs.

I'm afraid my expectations-o-meter for Atlantis is already set firmly at zero. Their flyer is a shocker.

 

[kittyP]

They are by far my favorite pizza I have ever had. apart from home cooked.

I have only qued if we have left the house with the sole purpose of going there.
The ques go really quickly. I have never waited more than 5 minutes.

Oh fuck it can't spell que properly can I

 

[gaijingirl]

Wasn't that where Atlantis* is now to be found,

yes.. it is. Always wondered why they closed down..

 

[gaijingirl]

And here's how it looked in 1966:
View attachment 31026

[All images from http://landmark.lambeth.gov.uk/]

well for all those complaining about prams - look at those big old 4x4s!

 

[madolesance]

Just remembered this that a friend took in the 80's-


Franco's (fFranco Manca) by Viramati, on Flickr

 

[Kanda]

Best pizza I've had in London, and extremely cheap when compared with the alternatives.

Pizza Pilgrims is better, Berwick St Market and various locations

 

[grit]

Pizza Pilgrims is better, Berwick St Market and various locations

Cheers will check it out.

 

[oryx]

My favourite is Pizza Metro - they have branches in Battersea and Notting Hill. They sell square pizza by the metre, very simple toppings but delicious.

 

[editor]

Just remembered this that a friend took in the 80's-


Franco's (fFranco Manca) by Viramati, on Flickr

That's a fantastic photo.

 

[Lo Siento.]

you Londoners and your queueing for restaurants is beyond me.

(and pizza, ffs! Surely there's a limit to how good crispy flat bread with stuff on it can be!)

 

[TruXta]

 

[trabuquera]

( pizza, ffs! Surely there's a limit to how good crispy flat bread with stuff on it can be!)

You could not be more wrong. Any fool knows that there is NO limit on how good pizza (or other toast-based meal concepts) can be.
You'll be denying that heaven can be found in a good pie next ffs.