And when not to order the caprese
Salads
A chopped Italian salad with an oregano vinaigrette, and a caprese when the tomatoes are worth it — which is not all year.
A caprese is three ingredients and two of them are only good for about four months a year. Between roughly June and September the tomatoes are worth eating and the caprese is one of the best things on this menu; in February they are pale, hard and taste of the truck they arrived in, and no amount of good mozzarella rescues that.
So we will tell you. If you order a caprese in January, whoever is on the counter will say that the tomatoes are not good this week and suggest the chopped salad instead. You are welcome to have it anyway and we will make it properly. We would just rather you knew.
The chopped Italian is the year-round one, and it is chopped rather than tossed whole for a practical reason: every forkful gets some of everything, which is the entire point of that kind of salad.
What goes on it
The chopped Italian
Romaine, chickpeas, red onion, cherry tomato, olives, cubed provolone and salami, all cut to about the same size.
The dressing
Red wine vinegar, olive oil, dried oregano, garlic, salt and pepper. Made fresh daily.
The caprese
Thick slices of fresh mozzarella and ripe tomato, whole basil leaves, olive oil, flaked salt, cracked pepper.
Additions
Grilled chicken, $5, off the same grill as the chicken roll.
How it is made here
Everything cut to size
Roughly a centimetre. It is what makes a chopped salad work and it takes the longest.
Dressed to order
Never in advance. A dressed salad standing for twenty minutes is a wilted salad.
Mozzarella at room temperature
Fridge-cold mozzarella tastes of very little. It comes out about half an hour before service.
Told honestly
If the tomatoes are poor this week, we will say so before you order the caprese.
Salads — what it costs
- Chopped Italian$12
- Caprese$14
- Add chicken+$5
Prices include every topping listed above. Extras are $3 for vegetables and $4 for meats. Prices change when our costs do; the menu here is the menu in the shop.
Before you order this
A shared flour kitchen, and what that rules out. Our kitchen handles wheat flour in open air all day, along with milk, eggs, soy, tree nuts and fish. Flour becomes airborne every time a dough ball is opened, and it settles on every surface in the room, including the peels, the oven floor, the cutting board and the wheel. We can tell you what we put on a pizza, and we will tell you honestly. We cannot tell you that anything leaving this kitchen is free of an allergen, and we will not say it. If a reaction would send you to hospital, this is not a safe kitchen for you, and we would far rather say so than take the order.
The kitchen is one room. Every pizza here is opened on the same bench, baked on the same floor and cut with the same wheel, and that is true of this one as much as any other. The pages on allergens and cross-contact and vegetarian, vegan and dietary questions set out plainly what we can and cannot tell you, including the things most shops leave you to assume.
The rest of the menu
Other things worth ordering
Heroes & Subs
Seeded rolls baked here each morning, filled to order — the Italian combination, chicken parm, meatball, or aubergine.
From $12
Baked Pasta
Baked ziti and lasagne from the same sauce as the pizzas, finished under the mozzarella in a small steel pan.
From $15
Wings
Baked in the pizza oven rather than fried, then tossed — hot, mild, or garlic-parmesan.
From $11Asked at the counter
Salads — questions
Can I have the chopped salad without meat or cheese?
Yes, and the price drops to $9. It is a genuinely good salad without them.
Is the dressing made here?
Yes, daily. It is oil, vinegar, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper — nothing you could not make, but it is fresh.
Do salads travel?
The chopped one does if we send the dressing separately, and we will do that by default for delivery. The caprese does not travel well at all.
Twelve to fifteen minutes, and worth the wait
Order a pie
Telephone the shop and we will tell you honestly how long the kitchen is running before you commit to anything. Collection is always quicker than delivery and the pizza is always better for it. If you are ordering for a crowd, the catering page has the trays and the notice we need.