New Brisbane

Vespa Pizza

Eat in/Takeaway/Delivered (via Vespa, of course)

148 Merthyr Road, New Farm

Ph: 3358 4100

Opening hours: 7 days, 5pm to late.

 

Vespa Pizza rescues gourmet pizza lovers from the likes of Castelli’s and Pizza Capers with a bit of pizzazz and quality to boot. The restaurant has risen to the challenge several times `gentrifying’ my meal of cheap wine with its takeaway pizzas, and taking `pizza joint` to new heights with its HQ/ restaurant.

The restaurant itself is cosy with red booths for early bookings and windowed front benches perfect for last minute perching. Outside dining has a shadowy, open-air ambience with tables cuddled up against the surrounding wooden fences. Wooden stools mill around each table creating an intimate dinner setting lit by fairy lights sprouting from creeping vines.

Pizza delivery is made on Vespa scooters - hence the chic name - and these can be heard, sporadically zooming off into the distance, distributing the restaurant’s flavoursome, wacky pizzas around New Farm and beyond.

I use the description wacky because some of these heart (and hunger)-stopping pizzas have the most unlikely combination of ingredients. The dining set aside, Vespa is seriously about the pizza (and personally I would sit out front in the gutter and still enjoy the food just as much).

Vespa Pizza’s website proclaims, Preludes, Pizza, The Rest. Preludes include a range of salads and calzones. The Chorizo, Olives and Tomato calzone ($9.50) in particular is a steamy, spicy mixture of flavours, oozing from folds of thick crust. The calzone is like a pocket pizza, hoarding its ingredients away from prying eyes, until teeth tear them free.

The Streaky Bacon and Red Current with Camembert pizza ($18.50) came highly recommended – much to my surprise. The resulting pizza was a cocktail of subtly sweet current spread topped with the salty overtures of bacon and rich, creamy slips of camembert. It was quite a light pizza, not heavy in ingredients, but using a wide range of flavours to compensate for this. The result was a naughty but delicious pizza.

The Vespa Reigns Supreme pizza ($19.50) is decked with goodies like pancetta, artichoke hearts, buffalo mozzarella, olives, capers and the list goes on. This pizza is a good middle ground for everyone. The taste? Will not disappoint. It serves almost all (non-vegetarian) preferences with an intension to please. Ask no more, just try it.

Other crazy pizza specials include the Possible Side Effects with chilli paste, hot salami and roasted peppers with parmesan and chilli flakes (phew!), $19. As well, the Cinnamon Roast Butternut Pumpkin with Dried Chilli, Sage and Fetta; and Sesame Chicken with Yoghurt, Mango Chutney, Coriander and Dried Apricots ($19.50). For a more tame, but tasty choice the Mushroom Ragout with Spinach and Fetta pizza ($19.50) is a simple combination of reliable (ie. spinach and fetta) flavours, topped with mushrooms for a nice edge.

As for ‘the rest’, I haven’t made it past the calzone and about two pizzas. But I hear rumours of an intriguing banana pizza that mysteriously disappeared from the menu. Maybe a dish such as the Nutella and Marshmallow Calzone with Ricotta Gelato ($9) will be enough to tempt. Although I can vouch for the Flourless Chocolate Cake with Icecream and Cream ($7.50). I taste-tested this little number and it had some seriously thick, rich flavours and textures – the sort that leaves you feeling light headed.

I would recommend Vespa on the sort of night when you can’t make up your mind where and what to eat; on the sort of night where you’re in good company, on a veranda somewhere under the stars with a bottle of red to hold down the table. I also recommend Vespa for dinner after a few after-work drinks on a Friday. The restaurant also has seating for larger parties.

A final note, the skittles on the counter a nice touch. Sweetens the bill!

By Alice B.

Photo by Pipe Dream Graphics