Dough Hands East
Three London chefs were asked separately where the best pizza in the city is, and all three named this one.
Why go
Hannah Drye blends her flour. Wildfarmed and Shipton Mill go into the same dough because, in her account to Restaurant, the better-tasting flours are not strong enough on their own, and the dough then cold ferments for up to three days5. You can taste both decisions in the crust. Rianne Shlebak, scoring it 8.2 for The Infatuation, called the pies London-style
and put them somewhere between classic New York-style and Neapolitan
, with charred pillowy crusts and flop factor
1.
She got here the long way. Five years front of house at Pizzaface in Brighton, then Sydney, then advertising, then furlough, then a pizza stall in Brixton in 2020. She quit the day job in 2023 and started cooking inside pubs. On why: "It just works well for me at the moment. It's low investment and low risk." The pub takes a cut of the turnover, and she keeps the menu.
That menu moves. Time Out's food editor Leonie Cooper lists recent specials as tequila sauce with fennel, chili sausage and pickled jalapeños, and pistachio pesto with sausage, and calls the specials a standing feature3.
The room is the Spurstowe Arms, a Hackney pub on Greenwood Road. Shlebak's description of a weekend there is "more cowboy boots and mullets than the Texas State Fair".
Order this / avoid
- Order: the tomato pie, marinara spread thin edge to edge, with the stracciatella added on top. The spicy tuna if you want the sharp one, Calabrian chili and lemon over red onion. The Jode, nduja and hot honey. Whatever is on the specials board that week.
- Avoid: the grandma pie, which is the one dish anyone has written against. Arriving at peak with somewhere to be afterward. Weekdays before 4pm. Coming here for slices, which she sells only at her Hackney Wick site.
What locals & experts say
- Dara Klein, chef-founder of Tiella, asked for the best pizza in London on TOPJAW, 16 February 2025:
Best pizza: [Dough Hands] at the [Spurstowe]. Shout out to Hannah.
2 - Richard Foster, executive chef at Ibai, same question, 27 November 2025:
Best pizza? [Dough Hands]. The marinara with the add-ons, and you get a bit of the Calabrian chilli on top as well. It is fit.
9 - Ben Allen, head chef at Parakeet, same question, 25 March 2026, and he needed two words:
Best pizza? Dough Hands.
10 - Rianne Shlebak, The Infatuation, 19 August 2024, 8.2 out of 10:
Our favourite is the aforementioned tomato pie, followed closely by the citrussy, spicy tuna.
On the tomato pie:The bright red marinara is spread evenly across the crisp base, and if you add the stracciatella as an extra (which you should), you'll get bites of creamy, light cheese and rich tomato sauce that balance out perfectly.
1 - The critical line, from the same review, on the grandma pie:
We had high hopes for this wedge of square pizza. But it lacked tomato sauce and we found it a little dry. Stick with the excellent thin-base pizzas.
1 - Leonie Cooper, Food & Drink Editor, Time Out London, covering the Hackney Wick opening on 7 April 2026:
Dough Hands make, hands-down, some of the best pizzas in London.
She also names the cost of that:the epic waits for a pie
.3
Good to know
- Where: the Spurstowe Arms, 68 Greenwood Road, E8 1AB. This is the Hackney pub, not the Hackney Wick bar.
- Timing: Monday to Friday 4pm to 9pm, Saturday noon to 9pm, Sunday noon to 6pm.
- Booking: walk in. There is no stated booking policy for the pizza and there is a documented queue, so go early or go late.
- Sites: two live. This one at the Spurstowe Arms, and Dough Hands at All My Friends, Unit 1, 96 White Post Lane, Hackney Wick E9 5EN, which opened 7 May 2026 and is the only place she sells slices. A third residency at The Old Nun's Head in Nunhead ended on 25 April 2026. The operator calls the sites by their pubs' names; "East" is a Google Maps label, and this page is the Greenwood Road pizza.
- Hygiene: the pizza trades under the pub's registration, so the record that applies is the Spurstowe Arms, FSA rating 5, Hackney, inspected 16 May 2025, FHRSID 470295. Dough Hands holds two FSA registrations of its own and both belong to other addresses.7
- Diet: nothing established. No vegetarian, vegan or gluten statement was found on any channel, so none is claimed.
Verdict
should-visit — Three working London chefs were asked where the best pizza in the city is and all three said Dough Hands. Dara Klein of Tiella named the Spurstowe by name and thanked Hannah; Richard Foster at Ibai wanted the marinara with the Calabrian chili on top; Ben Allen at Parakeet gave a two-word answer. That is the strongest evidence this database collects short of Jeff's own mouth, and it is backed by what is actually in the dough. Drye blends Wildfarmed and Shipton Mill flour because the better-tasting one is not strong enough on its own, and cold ferments it for up to three days, which is why Rianne Shlebak found the crusts charred and pillowy with a proper flop when she scored it 8.2 for The Infatuation. Leonie Cooper, Time Out London's Food & Drink Editor, calls them hands-down some of the best pizzas in London. It sits at should-visit rather than must-visit for one reason worth being straight about: the only outlet that has put a number on it gives 8.2 here and 9.2 to Crisp Pizza in Hammersmith, and its reviewer told people to skip the grandma pie. Go for the tomato pie, in a Hackney pub, and expect to wait.