La Gatta - Altea

This is our second time to Pizzeria Porrino. We live here locally in Valencia and attempt to try as many pizza places as possible. The pizza here is traditionally Neapolitan, the crust is very delicious, the sauce is just right, and the pizza overall is top notch Neapolitan. We have tried the diavola, margherita, and cotto pizzas, and they are all delicious. My wife is not a true pizza lover, prefers the salads, tried one last week and was not impressed, but last night she tried one with jamon iberico and she loved it. If I were to complain about anything, I feel the menu is a bit limited in some regards, maybe a better variety of appetizers would be nice, not really sure. In the end I always start out thinking I want more than just a pizza, but by the end the pizza fills me up so much that I cannot eat another morsel, so maybe it is just me. I do miss a traditional carpaccio for sure, that is my go-to appetizer when eating Neapolitan pizza. My daughter loves the Tiramisu and my son liked the cheesecake the first time we were there. Last time he ate two pizzas by himself, so there was no room for the cheesecake. The owner and staff are very friendly, provided is with complimentary focaccia, treated us very well, took care of all our needs quickly. I see a lot of people complain about service and I just want to say one thing overall.... Here in Spain, Valencia since we are here, the service is usually spot on, they take your order, bring your food, leave you alone until you look for them. Service can be interpreted as slow at times, but here in Spain we order, eat, and sit for hours after the fact to talk and enjoy the moment. Coming from the U.S., I know this is not the way, we always ate and ran, but here, after living here for 5 years, we have learned what going out to eat is about, and it is not just the meal. I can say the first time we came to this restaurant, the service was a little slow, but they were always attentive and happy to help us when we signaled we needed something. Enjoy the food, this place is worth the visit, the pizza is excellent!

I'd looked for a while for a pizzeria for our trip to Valencia and decided on this one because of the great reviews. We arrived and were greeted straight away. The restaurant is cute and I liked the atmosphere. We ordered our pizzas and they were huge. They looked amazing, however, when we cut the pizza we found that the middle of the pizza was soggy as though the base hadn't been cooked fully in the middle. This obviously spoilt the taste. The outside was great, although there wasn't much cheese on the pizza, it was more like dough with tomato sauce and a few rings of cheese. It was disappointing to say the least. The price is decent and maybe we were unlucky with the base. We did arrive about ten minutes after they opened so maybe the oven wasn't hot enough or something but we'd rather have waited than have uncooked dough.

The only other time I had a pizza base like the one we had in La Gatta was in Sorbillo Naples, so it was no surprise to find out that Luca the owner came from Naples. The restaurant is really clean and smart, the Pizzas are excellent and Luca was a fantastic host because he made my wife and I feel totally at home there. Cannot praise the place enough, plus he was kind enough to make great suggestions on other places to eat. We went here a couple of times over the 8 days we were in Valencia

We stayed one evening from this place on the way to Riff and thought we had to come back and try this place. Each table has a wine bottle overflowing...

Nope. Doesn't taste or look like neapolitan pizza, my marinara was crunchy.. Ok but definitely not the real thing.