Review: Manly pizzeria Pocket Pizza on Sydney’s northern beaches

You don’t have to go to New York for pizza. Manly’s Pocket Pizza obliges with its take on a Big Apple tradition.

Pocket Pizza’s classic margarita. Photos: Adam Yip.

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If New York-style pizzas made with thin, hand- stretched dough are your kind of thing, then Pocket Pizza is worth squeezing into one evening.

This pint-sized space has a pint-sized menu, and apart from nine pizzas, which are on the evening menu, there isn’t a great deal of choice for non-pizza fans.

The boys behind this slice of pizza heaven come with a Manly-centric culinary CV.

The crumbed cheese burger is a taste of New York. Photo: Adam Yip.

Late last year, Dylan Eisenhut, ex-Pony Room and Hemingway’s old chef Ben Pichon, revamped Il Gondoliere’s red and white checked table cloths bringing cheeky-titled pizzas and smattering of dude food to the beaches.

Dylan Eisenhut reckons that he’s done the due diligence and come up with a core product that you can either eat in or takeaway.

A year on and Pocket Pizza has introduced a limited lunch menu three times a week.

Daytime dude food doesn’t have pizzas, but it does have other classics from the US of A including a Noo Yawk reuben on rye. This baby is stuffed with smoked brisket, pastrami, Swiss cheese and sauerkraut. Or there’s a Royale with cheese served on a milk bun, southern fried chicken with iceberg slaw and fungitown, the crumbed portobello mushroom and kale `burger’ that will keep non meat eaters happy.

Insdie job: Pocket Pizza in Manly’s Whistler St. Photo: Adamt Yip.

The pizza clock starts ticking from five. At this early hour it’s mainly families with young children filling the tables. Inside, the rap music is already pumping, long before the food arrives.

Two fried cheese burgers come out first. They’re a must for any salad dodger as there’s no greenery, apart from pickles, just a beef patty, crumbed for di latte and bacon jam sandwiched between a milk bun. The bacon jam is homemade. It’s sweet and slightly salty and works surprisingly well with the creamy, gooey and extremely hot cheese.

Pocket Pizza’s caprese salad, a red white and green bowl of tomatoes, strawberries, burrata and fresh basil leaves cuts through all the greasiness.

Tony Gardner at work in the iny kitchen. Photo: Adam Yip.

The 3 pig pizza is perfect for two little piggies to share. The trio of porky toppings features speck, njuda (a spreadable spicy salami) and salami, as well as chilli oil and for di latte on a chewy but not dry base.

It’s salty, spicy and a definite winner.

Essentials

Pocket Pizza

2A Whistler St, Manly

Phone: [phone]

Open: Tuesday to Sunday, 5-10pm; lunch, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, from 11am to 3pm

Go for: classic margarita pizza, $20; porky 3 pigs pizza, $25; royale with cheese burger and shoestring fires from the lunch menu, $18

BYO: No

Vibe: Dude food

Bottom line: $71 for two with drinks