Simon Wilkinson reviews 400 Gradi

Former world pizza champion Johnny Di Francesco has brought his growing restaurant business to Adelaide, writes Simon Wilkinson

Owner Johnny di Francesco at 400 Gradi. Picture: Dean Martin

The world has gone awards mad. Every week the inboxes in this newsroom are filled with releases spruiking the businesses that have just won some sort of “prestigious” national or international accolade. The beverage industry is rife with them, so it is rare to find a wine, beer or gin that can’t scrape in for a gold or silver medal in a show somewhere if they try. Restaurants, bars and cafes aren’t that far behind.

You would think that the sheer volume of awards might mean their value was diminished, but handled the right way they clearly still carry some weight.

400 Gradi is a case in point. Back in 2014, when he was named World Pizza Champion at a competition in Italy, owner Johnny Di Francesco had one pizzeria in suburban Melbourne. Five years later, on the back of that win, he has four in his hometown, as well as expanding to New Zealand, the Middle East and a cruise liner.

400 Gradi, Norwood

My first encounter with 400 Gradi was at the Crown Casino, where it has really hit the jackpot. A massive dining room and adjoining terrace is fuelled by a row of ovens and run by an army of staff. Tables turn over quickly but there is still a line.

The next was on The Parade, where Gradi made its first move interstate earlier this year. Taking over what was Gusto, the Norwood version feels as if many of the same ideas have been crammed into a much, much smaller footprint.

The DJ is set up just inside the door. Next to him is a station for shucking oysters and serving olives, then a refrigerated salumi display and then the bar. A pair of ovens, clad in signature bronze tiles, dominate the kitchen at the back.

The space remaining is devoted to regular tables in the middle and a row of booths along the far wall where illuminated glass spheres hang overhead. There are only 50 or so seats in total, making the overflow to the footpath out front a necessity.

400 Gradi, Norwood

That’s where we have managed to get a booking, in an enclave protected from falling temperatures by heavy plastic blinds and a gas heater. This area has its own service team and we are looked after very competetently by a young woman who could walk into a job in most places.

Like its Melbourne counterpart, food comes out fast. The starters we ask for arrive in a flash, which is a bit of a concern for the fritto miso. A random assortment of fried seafood looks like the contents of a net dumped on a trawler deck. One would hope it had been fried to order, but that seems unlikely. The whole school prawns (including heads), calamari strips, soft shell crab parts and chunks of veg are coated in the finest veil of batter but it doesn’t have the still-sizzling, super-crunchy quality of freshly fried food and is only just warm. The chilli mayo underneath is unremarkable.

A salad of poached octopus tentacle, cucumber balls and pomegranate in an avocado slurry pops with bright colours but the flavours are in shades of grey.

The next course fares better. Strip loin (porterhouse) steak, sourced from Cape Grim’s grass-fed herds in Tasmania, is a case of not mucking up great produce. A well-trimmed log of beef has been grilled, rested and cut into hefty slices that are properly seasoned and blessed with the kind of savoury meatiness that is so often missing. It is surrounded by blobs of parsnip puree and morel mushrooms that don’t contribute much.

Twisted casaracce is a good pasta shape to pick up a rubbly combination of crumbled fennel sausage and peas, with a truffle pecorino grated over the top.

400 Gradi, Norwood

But what about the pizzas? Judging by the other tables we see, most punters are there to get their fill of Johnny’s world-beaters. The title-winning “margherita verace” has a dark brown crust dotted with specks of char. Bright red outbreaks of passata (San Marzano of course) bubble to the surface in the few gaps that exist between islands of molten mozzarella. Basil leaves, however, are uneven and scrappy. I’d rate it good, rather than great, particularly that crust, which isn’t particularly tempting to eat alone.

And don’t bother with dessert. A white chocolate mousse is so achingly sweet that even a truck-full of raspberries (as opposed to three) would struggle to cut through. And the tiramisu is dismal, with little evidence of coffee or booze, so the biscuits are still dry and the cream flavoured only by a cocoa dusting.

If there were an award for the world’s worst tiramisu, it would be in the running.

400 GRADI

121 The Parade, Norwood

8364 6422, 400gradi.com.au

OWNER Johnny Di Francesco

FOOD Italian

ANTIPASTI $12-$24

PIZZA$17-$25

MAIN $22-$42

DESSERT $15

DRINKS Italian wines, sorted by region, share equal billing with Australian labels, mostly from this state.

OPEN LUNCH and DINNER Daily

SCORE 12/20