There’s a scene in Eat Pray Love where Elizabeth Gilbert (played by Julia Roberts), freshly freed from the shackles of married life, sets down her slice of Margherita pizza and tells her new friend: “I’m in love. I’m having a relationship with my pizza.”
It’s a scene that stays with you if you’re a foodie – the sincere, passionate proclamation that this pizza from a low-key Neapolitan pizza joint is, without question, the best pizza in the world. Since its origins in Napoli back in 1870, the family-run pizzeria (L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele) has expanded beyond its original base. Thankfully though, the pizza base has stayed the same, and hooly dooly – Liz was onto something.
After opening more than 80 branches across the world, L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele opened the doors to its first Aussie outpost on December 5 in the heart of Sydney’s CBD, and it’s truly the silly-season blessing we didn’t know we needed.
Located just steps from Circular Quay and flooded with light through floor-to-ceiling windows, the 400-person venue buzzes with energy and a loud, very Italian sense of community. We visited at 6pm on a Tuesday evening, and the place was already humming – tables busy with groups of all ages, tearing apart pizzas and clinking Limoncello Spritzes over plates of arancini balls and fried polenta. In the corner by the window, a group of Italian men roar with laughter and clap wildly at intervals.
“We wanted to bring the energy of Napoli to Sydney – this isn’t fine dining, it’s affordable and fun and noisy. We want people to come here and feel like they’re in the middle of Napoli,” the venue manager, Ludovico Capolupo (Ludo, to us) explains.
With warm Italian hospitality, Ludo asks us: “What are you drinking? Do you drink alcohol? Let me look after you.” And presents us with two perfectly formed Montenegronis – the restaurant’s signature drink. The drinks list has been brought to life in collaboration with the team at Bar Conte, so you can expect sublime Negronis as standard.
On Ludo’s recommendation, we order the meatballs and burrata to start, and add on the ricotta-stuffed zucchini flowers too because balance is everything. If you’re dining with just one other person, this is the perfect way to start a meal – the burrata is creamy as hell and served on a zesty bed of zucchini and mint, the meatballs arrive piping hot and swimming in a sweet tomato sugo, and the zucchini flowers frankly I could live off (though they could do with a wedge of lemon to help cut through).
Tables around us come and go, with plates and drinks served with flair by the all-Italian team. It’s the kind of unpretentious, lively place you immediately want to return to, and with very affordable prices, that’s an achievable aim.
And then, of course, there’s the pizza. In the name of journalism, we ordered the famous Margherita (an affordable $18 per pie, reflecting Da Michele’s mission to make world-class food affordable), and the Regina – a criminally salty fiesta of Buffalo Mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, prosciutto and Grana Padano. Committed to bringing the real Neapolitan experience to Sydney, the team are meticulous about the ingredients: with tomatoes and Agerola Fiordilatte cheese imported from Italy, and Parma prosciutto aged for 18 months and sliced on site with Italian tools. Truly though, it was the dough that got me. Recognised by UNESCO in 2017 as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, the Neapolitan dedication to hand-stretched dough is a genuine art form, and the result is a gorgeously rustic, chewy, wood-fired delight.
Before we tucked in, my bestie (and fellow pizza enthusiast) told me about the best pizza of his life, which he ate from an Italian piazza overlooking the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In the way that memories do when all the ingredients are extra-special – place, time, poetry – this pizza has cemented itself as his golden standard. Eaten with my best friend on a beautiful summer evening in the best city in the world (personal opinion), Da Michele’s pizza did the same for me. Hand on heart, I’ve never loved a pizza more.
L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele is open daily at 50 Pitt Street, Sydney. You can learn more and book over here.
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