The pizzeria trying to bring a corner of Putney back to life

There is a corner of the borough where thousands of people live and nobody ever seems to be. The towers by the river inlet, where Putney shades into Wandsworth Town, went up, filled up, and went quiet: well presented, well lit, and about as lively as an architect’s render at dusk. More than one still has “ready for immediate occupation” signs at its base. You can walk the river path there on a summer evening and feel entirely alone in the company of several hundred lit windows.

Which is exactly why we went. Word reached us that a pizzeria had opened in a ground-floor unit at the foot of one of the towers, and the idea of anything opening on that corner was novel enough to load up the whole family, kids included, and walk over on a Saturday evening. Expectations were modest. This is not a stretch that has earned the benefit of the doubt, and a new pizzeria under a tower block could very easily mean sloppy pizza for a captive audience.

Reginè has other ideas. The first sign is the place itself: bright and cheery where it could have gone stuffy-traditional, with a red room, mismatched dining chairs painted in five colours, cutlery served in old tomato tins, a painting of the Amalfi coast on the wall and a neon sign outside wearing a little neon crown.

The menu says “Ciao Wandsworth” at the top and misspells its own address at the bottom, which tells you where the perfectionism has been spent: on the food, as it turns out, where it belongs. Three young servers run the floor while the kitchen works behind them, and the greeting was warm even as five of us arrived at half six on a Saturday. The service stayed that way all evening: attentive without hovering, plates cleared when the table got full. We sat outside under the Moretti umbrellas in the evening sun and were not once made to feel like an inconvenience, which with a bunch of kids in tow is worth stating plainly.

The menu is almost entirely pizza, and a good range of it. We ordered three. The Bufala (£14.49) is a margherita that has been to finishing school: proper dollops of buffalo mozzarella and a tomato sauce that actually tasted of something. The house Reginè (£17.99) draped Parma ham over buffalo mozzarella and artichokes and was just as well made. The bases were thin, blistered at the crust, held together to the last slice, and carried their own flavour rather than acting as a delivery vehicle; nothing arrived oily, nothing arrived soggy. It isn’t sophisticated food. But then it’s pizza, and this is good pizza: fresh ingredients, properly cooked, no shortcuts visible. One pizza intrigued me from the menu and lost out in the final reckoning: the Würstel e Patatine, a pizza topped with frankfurters and chips. A reason to go back, or possibly a warning.

The one I’ll still be thinking about next week is the carbonara (£16.99). No tomato at all: mozzarella, ribbons of egg yolk laced across the top, black pepper, and thick lacquered slabs of guanciale doing the salty, savoury work the dish needs. It sounds like a mistake and is instead the point, rich without ever tipping into too-eggy. I know it was good because I did the only honest test there is, and had one more slice than I intended to.

The wobble is not the food but the setting. The terrace feels hurried: a run of metal tables and chairs with barriers and umbrellas put up around them, and no disguising that you are eating at the foot of a tower block while joggers and cyclists stream past on the river path. It is oddly isolated and busy at the same time. Cosy enough for a relaxed dinner; not yet a place for a long evening, not least because alcohol was off on our visit, the licence having only just come through, so the drinks ran to a decent line-up of Italian sodas.

The desserts, unexpectedly, were excellent. The sorbetto limone (£6.50), flagged on a hand-chalked board, arrived frozen inside the lemon itself, and we were told it comes direct from Amalfi: properly tart, properly lemony. The tiramisù (£7) came in a pink glass coupe topped with coffee beans, creamy and flavourful, and was wolfed down by committee before anyone could claim seconds. A third, the £5.50 dessert of the day, was eaten with such speed that nobody can now remember anything about it except that it was good.

The bill for five of us, with a round of San Pellegrinos and three desserts, came to £94.57 including the 10 per cent service charge, and it felt fairly priced at the till and still does now.

So who is it for? Anyone in the towers, obviously, who finally has somewhere to walk downstairs to. Families, certainly. And anyone passing along the river path who has wondered whether that handsome, empty quarter would ever get some life in it. Reginè can’t fix that corner on its own; it needs a few more neighbours before anyone calls it a destination. But on a summer Saturday, with people spilling out at its tables, it is doing something no amount of good architecture has managed there yet: giving people a reason to stay.

One lit corner. It’s a start.

Reginè Pizzeria, 20 Enterprise Way, Wandsworth SW18 1SA · reginepizzeria.co.uk · @reginepizzeria · £94.57 for five with soft drinks and desserts; roughly £40 for two · Walk-in, card accepted, kids welcome, gluten-free bases available, delivery offered, outdoor tables on the river path · 10% discretionary service charge · Open since 8 June 2026