Next month it will have been a year since Ace Pizza opened full-time in an eye-catching colour-soaked space in Victoria Park Village, after years serving up pies in Hackney’s The Pembury Tavern (where it still also resides). To mark 12 months of plating up massive garlic butter and mozzarella bread sticks and its fiery Honey pizza, Ace is dropping a special menu next month, with the help of a bunch of locals. And they aren’t any old locals – they’re some of the area’s best-loved food and drink maestros: Violet Cakes, Papo’s Bagels, Decatur, Honey Spencer and Five Points Brewing.
“Reaching our first birthday feels particularly meaningful at a time when independent hospitality businesses are facing significant challenges,” Ace Pizza founder Rachel Jones said in a statement. “Over the past year we’ve served more than 50,000 pizzas, but what we’re most proud of is the community that has formed around the restaurant.”
On July 1 the special menu will launch, with an Italian American-inspired starter – American hardshell clams served on the half shell with garlic and guanciale butter and breadcrumbs from Tom Zahir Browne, the chef-owner of Louisiana-inspired pop-up Decatur. There's the "NY deli pie" in collaboration with Papo’s Bagels, which tops a pizza with provolone, fior di latte, shaved pastrami, dill pickle, jalapeno cream cheese, American mustard and Papo’s everything seasoning, and ice-cream with cookie dough chunks, birthday cake crumb and rainbow sprinkles from Violet Cakes.
For drinks, there’s a summery bergamot, orange and grapefruit spritz from sommelier Honey Spencer, who also runs Broadway Market restaurant Sune, and a limited-edition pineapple JUPA made in cahoots with Five Points Brewing that is inspired by Ace's summer special, which is in turn inspired by a Hawaiian pizza. Each menu item will be available all through July.
“This month-long celebration is our way of saying thank you,” Jones says, “bringing together some of our favourite local businesses (and a few old friends) for a menu that celebrates the relationships that have helped to get us here.”
Ace Pizza’s first birthday menu is available from its Victoria Park restaurant from July 1–31.
