If you are Italian and you’re about to complain that those family meals are more Looking for Alibrandi than happily ever after, don’t read on.
For all us non-Italians, unless you’re planning on marrying into an Italian-clan (and now, Italians speak up on the perils of meddling relatives), Via Napoli Pizzeria’s brand new Hunters Hill restaurant is about as close as you’ll get to the real deal.
When Lugi Esposito came to Sydney a few years ago, he took the pizza business by storm, opening the hugely successful and popular original Via Napoli in Lane Cove.
His brand new Hunters Hill venue replicated that winning formula and by the second Saturday night of service, is already booked out. Don’t worry, they won’t turn you away if you don’t have a booking. Just be prepared to sit at one of the tables on the street front – and to have to use the blankets thoughtfully provided to keep off the chill.
Via Napoli is not the spot for a quiet date night. There are babies, kids, grandparents, friends, big groups, little groups, couples, birthday parties – everybody is welcome and everyone is squeezed into a dining room that’s warm not just because of the big wood fire pizza ovens in the kitchen.
Giant, long boards of pizza are lifted over everyone’s heads – yes Lugi’s famous one metre pizzas – and are served steaming to the table.
The action never, ever stops in the pizza kitchen, where chefs work at a dizzying speed that’s fun to watch from the glass window.
They flip dough and fling fior de latte, ricotta, buffalo mozzarella, salami, ham and other fresh ingredients together to create a pizza that’s whipped into the super hot oven for just under 90 seconds and no more.
The pace is fast, the passion is high and the pizza is bellissimo.
Via Napoli Pizzeria
Shop 1/64-68 Gladesville Road, Hunters Hill, Sydney
Takeaway: (02) 9816 3600
Reservations: (02) 9428 3297
www.vianapolipizzeria.com.au