Test Driving Bunso, where bringing Filipino flavours into a pizzeria proves to be a winning combination

Outside Bunso, it's really hard to imagine that this used to be a beauty school!

What can you tell us about Bunso?

This is the latest restaurant from Omar Shah. He's the man behind the Maginhawa Group, which runs places as varied as the Caribbean Guanbana and the Filipino ice cream parlour Mamasons. He's more recently best known for another Kentish Town restaurant, Belly, a modern Filipino restaurant that's received nothing but high praise since it opened last year. Like Belly, Bunso is exploring Filipino flavours, but it's doing it through a pizzeria's lens.

Where is it?

You'll find Bunso in Kentish Town, with the nearest station being Camden Road overground. And rather than take over an existing restaurant space, Shah has built one from scratch. Before Bunso, there was a beauty school in this location and before that it was a motorbike garage (which Shah visited when he was younger). So, given that there's never been a restaurant here before, it's a very impressive affair. Set slightly back from the road, it's an absolutely perfect spot for a pizzeria/diner. 

And this is what it looks like inside - those stools by the counter are also really comfy. 

Inside, it has the look of a classic diner with both retro and modern touches throughout. It also benefits from a huge music system/DJ booth that takes up almost all of one of the walls. That has a great impact on the room, filling the place with a certain retro take as far as the soundtrack goes and just creating a great vibe throughout. It's loud and the music really fills the space, but never takes over. 

Omar himself, checking out the sound system he'd just installed that day. 

So what can we expect from the food?

Bunso is being pitched as a bakery by day and a pizzeria by night, both influenced by Filipino flavours. 

As a result, the menu is going to be changing quite a bit throughout the day. At the beginning of the day, and throughout lunch, it will be a bakery - although at the time of writing, that hadn't kicked off yet (NB: the bakery opened 20 October). While it's on bakery mode, you'll be able to pick up pastries, like a Guyabano cruffin or an ube ganache, Bunso toast with coconut ice cream or a selection of pies, including adobo mushroom and wagyu caldatera.

In the evening, 5pm onwards, it becomes the pizzeria, and that's what we took a look at. But even though it's primarily billed as a pizzeria, there are also some great small plates and pasta dishes. Based on our experience, these are not to be missed. We would highly recommend any of the below:

Pomelo salad (£7) - an excellent version of a classic.

Cornish bluefin tuna & beetroot kinilaw (£13) - another must-have, and also works well as a low-carb starter before you attack the pizzas. 

Pappardelle with oxtail and peanut chilli crisp (£12) - a wonderful pasta dish that wouldn't be out of place in one of London's best pasta bars. 

Then it's time for the main event - the pizzas. There are seven to choose from and while you can go for a standard margherita, if you've come to Bunso you're going to need to try a little harder than that and go for the pizzas that embrace Filipino flavours and ingredients. And even if your knowledge of Filipino food isn't up to scratch, you'll find a handy card that takes you through some of the ingredients that you might not be familiar with. 

Here are the two that we went for:

Longanisa Sausage with calamansi hot honey and atchara (£23) - our favourite of the pizzas, one of the best sausage pizzas you're likely to have. 

Kaldereta with teardrop pepper, goat's cheese and potato (£23)

You can also find a mushroom adobo with seasonal mushrooms, laing with creme fraiche and onion and a peanut pesto with cherry tomato. The dips are also well worth a look, particularly an absolutely fantastic calamansi aioli (£3). 

And as they're a bakery, desserts are woth waiting for? 

At the moment, desserts are relatively simple with a choice of either gelato (including durian gelato), affogato, and just the one actual dessert. That was great (see below) but we're hoping that once the bakery gets properly into the swing of things, that evening dessert menu will start to expand (the ube ganache would be a great addition). 

Ancho brownie with clotted cream covered in Tanduay rum caramel (£9) - yes, that is a massive spoon of clotted cream drenched in caramel.

Matcha affogato with mango sorbet (£5) - a great twist on a traditional affogato. 

What about drinks?

The drinks list is led by cocktails and, like the pizzas, some of these bring in Filipino flavours and ingredients. This works particularly well with a spicy atchara marg (£11), and we'd also recommend the two options below. Wines stick to Europe, with the list starting at £38 a bottle. Meanwhile, at the bakery, the drinks offering there sounds very strong, with the likes of an Ube Cushion Matcha and Calamansi Mont Blanc on the list. 

Overall thoughts

We left as big fans of Bunso. The place itself just looks great, both warm and inviting as well as being infused with a great vibe thanks to that sound system. And that's paired with a very strong menu throughout, from the small plates through to the pizzas. And those pizzas, given they're what the place has to get right, were really very, very good. They really work well at bringing something new to the table with the Filipino ingredients, but also as being just very good pizzas. All in all, this is an easy recommendation.