Decorated with the pages of cult graphic novels, a projector screen on the wall playing obscure movies and random paraphernalia strewn around the interior, you can’t help but feel like you’ve stepped into a comic geek’s wet dream instead of a restaurant. Atomic Pizza is further down Cowley Road than you might like, but you’ll be happy you made the trip to escape the amorphous pseudo-Italian chains dotted around the city centre.
The menu is vast, and in the style of a fad sticker book it incorporates virtually every cartoon character, Western, or US celebrity known to man, with bad puns and catch phrases aplenty. Unless you opt for the plain ‘Pac Man’ you’re guaranteed to finish your last mouthful feeling sated: the combinations are many and the toppings generous. This is home to perhaps (nay, certainly) the best vegetarian pizza in Oxford; the Popeye comes with spinach, goats cheese, sundried tomatoes, red onions and olives. There are also several delicious options that will tempt even the most avid carnivore. For those who refuse to sway from the meaty path I recommend the Lost Boys: pulled pork, red jalapenos, lime, garlic oil and coriander. It might sound like I’m listing the dictionary of delicious foods, but that’s what makes the place so great.
If the extensive choice doesn’t whet your appetite you’re at liberty to create your own. The waiters are all incredibly friendly, helpful, and usually a bit eccentric – most are clearly as excited to be there as you. One friend even complained, “the service is annoyingly friendly”. Not possible, I‘d argue. If you loathe spherical dough bases decorated with toppings fear not, for they will also cook up the entire ‘Atomic Burger’ line up from the sister restaurant just down the road as well. All their burgers can have either beef, chicken or a veggie pattie at the centre; a firm favourite is the Daisy Duke, with crispy bacon, American cheese and BBQ sauce. They all come with a ‘free side’ (expect it to cost around a tenner), as if you needed more to eat. To go on a real gastronomic bender, the ‘Atomic Wings’ and ‘Speedy Gonzales Nachos’ will start you off nicely when accompanied with one of the disgustingly calorific milkshakes (caramalised baconshake with cream anyone?) or grossly alcoholic cocktails.
It’s sensible to book in advance at the weekend, and make sure you’ve left plenty of room for the great American-sized portions. I mean it: some of us have to fast all day in preparation. So that’s Atomic Pizza – big, brash, loud and unrivalled. “We love pizza, you love pizza, so let’s get it on”. Wise words indeed.
