Pizza Meccanica review — Simon Wilkinson finds a pizzeria firing on all cylinders
A PASSION for vintage cars and wood-oven pizzas comes together in a suburban eatery that is firing on all cylinders.
delicious SA
Don't miss out on the headlines from delicious SA. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Dreams come in all shapes and sizes, many of them remaining unfulfilled. One of mine was to have a wood oven and fireplace built in the backyard. Now they are there, I just need to work out what to do with them.
Stelio Birbas’s dream was along a similar line but bigger, fancier and with far more attention to detail. A graphic designer by trade, he has brought his twin loves of authentic Neapolitan pizza and old cars together in one triumphant and very personal eatery.
Pizza Meccanica is the bomb – a big-hearted, instantly likeable hideaway that has landed in the inner-northwest firing on all cylinders. It is serious where it counts (the pies are up there in a discussion of Adelaide’s best), yet a whole load of fun in other ways.
A block or so down Hawker St from the rail crossing, this converted warehouse feels somewhere between discovering a speak-easy and the local UltraTune, complete with Stelio’s own hot-red Chev pick-up truck. Bespoke planked tabletops are embossed with long-gone brands, the menu is clipped to a rego plate and the boards carrying pizzas are balanced precariously on old oil cans.
While we are the third or fourth group to arrive, half-an-hour later the place is jumping, with what seems a representative slice of the local community, including pram-pushing parents, millennial mates and a bunch of old rogues who look like they might kick off a poker game at any minute.
While the chirpy aproned staff flit around the room, engaging with all and sundry, the “meccanic” stays focused on his tiled pride-and-joy, stoking the fire in its belly, shuffling pizzas around its superheated floor and sliding them out as the crust starts to blister.
Stelio, the front of the menu tells us, grew up in a hospitality family and, while otherwise employed, developed a fascination with Naples’ most famous export that he couldn’t shake. He started making pizzas at home, then realised he wanted to share the love. When he stumbled across this warehouse, then a derelict shell, the vision began to take shape … first as a studio for his design business and, since October, a pizzeria four nights a week.
The attention to detail shows from the first snack, cotechino sausage with roasted peppers and fior di latte that is nothing like the rustic assembly those ingredients might conjure. Instead, four discs of the coarse-ground and wickedly fat-pocked sausage are topped with a curl of the soft, charred veg, a small chunk of the cheese and a basil leaf. They are carefully arranged on a plate with splotches of salsa verde and balsamic vinegar that cut the richness down to size.
Meccanica’s pizzas come in seven varieties, all strictly authentic. You won’t find seafood (other than anchovies) or chicken tandoori. Pineapple? Mamma Mia! But those who appreciate this traditional style, in which the quality of the base is just as important as what is loaded upon it, are in for a treat.
They look magnificent, a perfectly imperfect wheel with a puffed up rim that is covered in black char pockmarks and measles spots. The menu extols the benefit of eating the crust but it has such a delectable tender chew and sits so lightly in the belly, the advice seems unnecessary.
The rest of the base is impressively thin, to the point that the end of each slice is flimsy and can easily lose its load unless it is carefully supported or, more controversially, eaten with knife and fork.
The opening margherita (or No. 2), always a good test, is exemplary, the smeared passata on the bottom with just enough concentrated punch to perform Simon and Garfunkel harmonies with the sweet milkiness of the molten cheese. Add paper-thin spicy salami slices, olives and capsicum for “The Salami”, No. 6. That’s my go-to for the next visit. From the specials list, “Porco Porcini” combines crumbled sausage, pancetta, chopped Swiss browns and porcini in a lustful, adults-only topping straight from the Umbrian hills.
Even a final, unnecessary Eton-Mess-style smash-up of cream, meringue, lemon curd and mixed berries hits all the right notes.
Adelaide’s pizza fortunes improve, with the installation of each wood oven. Sunny’s is party central, Pizzateca has the rural setting, but Meccanica, perhaps, feels the most authentic of all. A dream come true, for sure.
Pizza Meccanica
2 Hawker St, Bowden, 8232 0044, pizzameccanica.com.au
OWNER / CHEF Stelio Birbas
FOOD Italian
SMALL $9-$16 PIZZA $17-$25 DESSERT $10-$19
DRINKS Italian accented locals and a pair of imports all look pizza-friendly.
Open for
LUNCH Sun
DINNER Thu-Sat
SCORE 7.5/10
Black, White and Reds: $150k lawsuit over top wine
A vineyard has accused a winemaker of blending lower-quality grapes into its top-shelf product, costing it $150,000 – but the winemaker says the entire harvest had “fundamental problems”.
Revamped Adelaide food court gets second tenant
A previously unused food court in a key CBD precinct now has a second tenant following a multimillion-dollar facelift, but COVID-19 has made hard work of filling the remaining spots.