FEATURE: PIZZA

- WORDS Amy Northcott

PIZZA IS HEARTY, comfort food whether it’s the cheese, wafer-thin crust, or controversial triangles of pineapple on top — yes, we went there. While the Italians were the first to craft the flatbread with tomato and cheese, pizza has branched out considerably when it comes to style. The US has a diverse pizza offering that includes everything from the rectangular Detroit to Chicago deep-dish and the thinner-based New York.

Here in Australia, local operators have taken inspiration from their US counterparts and are bringing an element of nostalgia to the table. Hospitality speaks to Paul Kasten from Deep End Pizza and Ben Fester and Drew Huston from City Oltra about their offerings and how they’re serving the iconic food.

– Drew Huston

Self-confessed pizza nerd Paul Kasten is originally from the US and opened Deep End Pizza in Melbourne’s Fitzroy almost a year ago. Kasten spent time working at fine-dining restaurants in cities known for their pizza styles, so it’s safe to say he has covered a lot of ground. When the chef came to Australia, it didn’t take long for him to identify an opportunity to produce something a little different. “I saw a gap in the local market here in Melbourne in terms of high-quality, American pizza styles,” he says.

The premise behind Deep End Pizza is inspired by iconic pizzerias including Blue Pan in Denver; Apizza Scholls in Portland; John’s of Bleecker Street in New York, and Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco. The venue serves three styles, the first of which is New York, which Kasten describes as an iteration that focuses on quality over quantity. “It is what you think of as the typical round, thin-crust pizza with big, foldable slices,” he says. The second is Detroit, which has a “thick, rectangular, focaccia-like base with a rim of crispy cheese”.

More work goes into creating the Detroit, which requires the base to be handled at least six times before serving. “To get these as light and crisp as possible, we go through a very labour-intensive par-baking process to get the crumb light and open.” The third is the stuffed Chicago style. “It is the deepest and most over-the-top version of deep dish built more like a pie with cheese and toppings between two layers of crust and sauce on top.”

Each option has a different dough with varying flours, mixing times, and methods. But they all use single-varietal flours from Provenance Flour & Malt and instant dry yeast to allow control over fermentation. The New York pizza bases go through a poolish method (pre-ferment added to the dough) and undergo a 24hour fermentation. “It gets us to a finished texture and flavour reminiscent of a crusty artisan bread loaf rather than a typical pizza dough,” says Kasten. The Detroit pizza dough rests for 48 hours to develop balance of structure while the Chicago pizza uses dough from the previous day that is dialled up with oil.

Deep End’s menu lists plenty of traditional pizza flavour combinations that all have slight modifications. “We have favourites available with a twist or two, which adds depth and complexity but still feel very familiar,” says Kasten. An example is the mortadella pizza, which is teamed with pickled chilli cream cheese and spring onion along with the hot salami, which features hot honey and ’nduja.

On the more experimental part of the menu, there’s the ‘tacos impastor’ with guajillo-achiote cured pork belly, roast pineapple, coriander, and salsa verde and the potato carbonara with mascarpone, mozzarella, potato, egg yolk, grana, and guanciale.

“The reception has been better than we ever could have hoped,” says Kasten. The Chicago pizzas have been the venue’s best seller so far.

“The novelty of serving the only accurate deepdish in town and the desire to get a cheese-pull picture has really driven the Chicago style to be our top seller from the beginning.”

Ben Fester and Drew Huston are behind City Oltra located in the Eddy dining precinct at Sydney’s Central Station. You may have come across the duo’s pizzas before at Poor Tom’s Gin Hall in Marrickville under the name Oltra Disc.

“We started off making pizzas together and doing pop-ups while working full-time jobs,” says Fester. “We thought, ‘This is a pain, we should actually just get a place’.”

City Oltra serves up pizza styles akin to those found across America, but rather than calling them by recognisable names, the pizzas are referred to as ‘rounds’ and ‘squares’. “We’ve got to these on our own from experimenting without trying to copy any style,” says Fester. “We call them rounds and squares in the shop to keep things simple. The rounds are like a New York slice where you can hold it in your hand and walk away.” On the flip side, the squares are comparable to a Detroit style or Sicilian pan pizza with bigger crusts and cheesy corners.

Dough-wise, City Oltra uses Provence Flour & Malt’s Spitfire flour, with the rounds sitting at 58–60 per cent hydration, and the squares at 68–70 per cent. The dough ferments for 48 hours, before it’s stretched and placed in the venue’s deck oven. The temperature is set at 300 degrees Celsius for squares and 400 degrees Celsius for rounds, with both bases cooked for 10 minutes before they’re topped and put back in the oven for an additional 10 or so minutes. “The square bases are super airy and have a crispy bottom and pillowy top,” explains Huston. “The rounds are cooked at a lower temperature for slightly longer for a bit more structure.”

The toppings and flavour combinations on the 16-inch rounds and 10x14-inch squares are available to order half and half and are driven by seasonal produce. “We deal with a few smallscale farmers and suppliers and tend to order small amounts of produce and test some things out,” says Fester. “We don’t stick to anything too traditional — we do like to have fun with it.”

Some of the highlights from the menu include artichoke purée and hearts with gorgonzola and honey along with the ‘rancho relaxo’, which combines hot pepperoni with cool ranch, red sauce, and cheese. The venue also serves up pizzas by the slice, which helps cater to a range of diners. “It’s nice to have some people sit at the bar with a few slices and others come in for a couple of hours.”

For City Oltra, a menu with familiar classics and some different flavour profiles is important. “The majority of our pizzas are based on classics, and I think a lot of people who come in get a feeling of nostalgia with the pizzas they had growing up,” says Huston. But that’s not to say you won’t see something new. “We’ll continue to try and push ourselves and be a bit more inventive with toppings depending on what produce we get in,” says Huston.

It’s clear the roots of City Oltra and Deep End Pizza hail from regional American pizzas, but both teams have incorporated an innovative aspect to keep diners engaged. It’s just one example of chefs chanelling the old with the new and familiarity with experimentalism, which is seeing no shortage of high-quality, inventive dishes hit the table.