Stonnington’s best pizza: Prahran’s Ladro Tap, Malvern’s Pizza Religion winners of Leader’s poll

They’ve both faced huge challenges during COVID-19, but two Stonnington pizza places with a twist have remained big favourites with local diners in a Leader poll.

Ladro Tap, owned by Ingrid Langtry and her husband Sean Kierce, is the co-winner of Leader’s poll to find Stonnington’s best pizza.

Diverse offerings including bars for wine and Spritz have helped two pizza restaurants become big favourites with Stonnington foodies.

Malvern’s Pizza Religion and Prahran’s Ladro Tap were the joint winners of Leader’s poll to find the best pizza in Stonnington, following nominations from readers.

Pizza Religion is owned by soon-to-be-married couple Matt Hunter and Tara Smith, whose venue has been open for six years in Claremont Ave.

They also operate another Pizza Religion store in Hawthorn which has a wine bar next door.

Mr Hunter, who has a fine dining background, said he was proud to see the store’s efforts both in the kitchen and in the community recognised.

He said their most popular pizzas included their beef brisket and varieties, along with its chorizo, prawn and jalapeno combination.

“It means people in the area love us, and we try to support a lot of local schools and footy clubs so its great they recognise that too,” he said.

“We try to bring a bit of different approach to pizzas, our food prep is all done in house and we put a lot of love into the product.”

Meanwhile, Ladro Tap co-owner Ingrid Langtry was also proud to be recognised for her eatery’s efforts after a tough 2020.

They transformed their stores into supermarkets selling their ingredients and stayed afloat by cooking meals for struggling members of the community.

Ms Langtry and partner Sean Kierce have operated their Greville St restaurant for 10 years, and operated out of Fitzroy for 18 years previously.

They recently introduced an outdoor Spritz bar as part of its on-road dining experiment with three other eateries in part of Greville St.

“It’s been amazing, its totally reinjected vibrancy into the street, and it hasn’t been this way for three or four years,” Ms Landry said.

She said Ladro’s margherita pizza and its Butter Bing – containing pork sausage, chilli and provolone cheese were its most popular, while its vegan mozzarella pizza had also gone “gangbusters”.

“Our pizzas are simple but we use the best possible ingredients available,” she said.