Last night we went to the new Sodo restaurant here in Honor Oak. They took over The Old Bank restaurant that Gingerline had been using as their secret HQ for the past year. They’ve opened early due to popular demand, and demand is huge: they have queues down the street and keep running out of dough for their pizzas!

Their speciality is sourdough pizzas. At the moment they don’t have the full menu linked above, but that doesn’t matter when what they do have is so good. We shared a Winter Goat (tomato, mozzarella, goats cheese, olives caramelsied onions & walnuts) which had such a sharp goats cheese that was amazing, and a Lorena (tomato, mozzarella, butternut squash, rosemary, feta & pine nut) which had lovely charred butternut squash and lovely, surprising pine nut bites. Both came on their amazing sourdough base which has a real depth of taste.

When we got home I tweeted them and cheekily asked if I could have some of their sourdough starter, and was extremely happy this morning to get a reply saying yes! So on our way back from Craft Beer Rising I noticed that they weren’t that busy (well by their standards… they were full but no queue down the road!) and popped in and asked about the starter. They gave me a big batch of the starter, happily handed over the secret ratios of different flours to use to feed it, along with tips for how to keep it.

My rye sourdough is kept at 200% hydration, but this stuff is much more traditional at about 90% hydration, so it should make it easier to follow sourdough recipes. Also it’s mostly wheat flour based, so I’ll be able to make normal gluten-based sourdough loaves! My plans are to refresh this next weekend after I get back from visiting my mum, then bake a proper sourdough boule in a banneton the following weekend.

So… how hipster am I? Sourdough pizza, then Craft Beer Rising in Shoreditch followed by getting my 2nd sourdough starter sorted, followed by sourdough-nuts.