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Roman Soul, Indian Heart: Ali's Pizzeria Comes to Gurugram I have eaten at more pizzerias in this city than I care to count, and if there is one thing that unites almost all of them, it is a kind of restlessness. The lighting is engineered for Instagram. The music is a decibel too loud for actual conversation. The menu changes every few months because someone in a boardroom decided the concept needed "refreshing." Everything about these places seems designed to be photographed rather than lived in. So it was a small, quiet pleasure to walk into Ali's Pizzeria at AIPL Joy Central Mall and find none of that. Ali's Pizzeria is not, strictly speaking, new to India — it opened its first outlet in Kanpur, where by all accounts it built a loyal following before its founders decided the capital region deserved a taste of what they were doing. Gurugram is its second address in the country, and if the brand's own instincts are anything to go by, it will not be its last. But what struck me on this visit wasn't the fact of expansion. It was the philosophy behind it — one that runs quite deliberately against the grain of everything Gurugram's food scene has taught us to expect. The Menu Beyond the Pizza The name suggests a one-trick pony, but that would be a disservice to what is, in fact, a fairly complete Italian café experience. The menu is organised the way an Italian day might unfold — a Barista section for the coffee ritual, a Pizza section for the wood-fired centrepiece, a Kitchen section for pastas and mains, and a Bake section for the sourdoughs, croissants and cookies that any serious Italian bakery would insist on getting right before anything else. This last point matters more than it might seem. Anyone who has spent time in Rome knows that the city's food culture doesn't really begin with dinner — it begins with the morning cornetto and the standing espresso, continues through a leisurely lunch, and only arrives at pizza as one part of a much larger, slower rhythm. Ali's Pizzeria has clearly understood this. It isn't trying to be a pizza chain with a coffee counter bolted on. It is trying, with evident sincerity, to recreate an entire way of eatin

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This post was published on 07th July, 2026 by Rahul on his Instagram handle "@rahulprabhakar (Rahul Prabhakar)". Rahul has total 69.5K followers on Instagram and has a total of 2.5K post.This post has received 192 Likes which are greater than the average likes that Rahul gets. Rahul receives an average engagement rate of 0.32% per post on Instagram. This post has received 139 comments which are greater than the average comments that Rahul gets. Overall the engagement rate for this post was lower than the average for the profile.