Enough already...

It's time for us all to take a stand. If we don't, Antigua will turn into one big pizzeria. 

A while ago we elected to boycott all local restaurants using pizza as a cheap trick to get bums on seats*. Maybe not actual, shamelessly fast-food pizzerias — like Domino's — just the ones who should know better. 

To some extent this is a phenomenon that has been stoked by the pandemic. And like inflation, it needs to be stamped out before it becomes fully entrenched. 

In that social-distanced environment where demand was seriously pinched, restauranteurs perhaps found it necessary to emphasise a proposition encompassing the unsophisticated, lowest common denominator tastes of both locals and visitors. 

This rather unfortunate revenue 'sweet spot' has been facilitated by the fact that interesting foreign food is often outside the comfort zone of chapines and interesting Guatemalan food sometimes similarly outside the comfort zone of gringos. The seemingly ubiquitous solution...pizza. 

When I first came here none of the leading restaurants in Antigua were indulging in this unimaginative nonsense. In fact the only place you could find a pizza was probably Quesos y Vino, and even there it wasn't the main item on the menu, as the name itself suggests. 

It's not special, it's not gourmet, it's just bollocks. 

And there is no other major city in the entire region where anything like it has occurred. 

* I had a minor panic the other day when these thoughts were buzzing around my head, as it occurred to me that I could be found guilty of serious hypocrisy if any of my 'Top 10 fave places to eat in Central America had a large section entitled PIZZA on their menus. After some frantic checking, I was like, pheeeew. All clear. 

The current chart...

1. Oliva Enoteca, Mérida

2. Primo, Playa del Carmen

3. La Esquina de Buenos Aires, San José

4. Bangcook, San Cristóbal de las Casas

5. Rumfish y Vino, Placencia

6. Catrín, Mérida

7. Mezzanine, Tulum

8. Makoto, Panama City

9. La Palapa del Tio Fito, Campeche

10. El Cau, San Cristóbal de las Casas

Subs' bench...

Patanegra, Playa del Carmen

Tin Jo, San José

Coctelería Cajún, Ciudad del Carmen