Forget Napoli and Roma, New York or Detroit: Sydney has developed its own signature style of pizza.

A boundary-pushing mash-up of fine-dining finesse and multicultural influence, Sydney pizzas come with flavoursome fermented bases, leopard-spotted crusts, and wildly creative toppings.

Marty McFly, co-owner of Pizza Bros in Erskineville, says while Melbourne pizza-makers tend to spin traditional pizzas following rules set down by the Neopolitan pizza police, the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, “in Sydney a new wave of Neo-Neapolitan pizzerias have been opening like wildfire”.

Now, you’re seeing Sydney-style pizza blowing up on social media, and dominating the menus at more than a dozen new pizzerias.

According to Italian-born pizza consultant Enrico Sgarbossa, it’s the first time Australia isn’t lagging five or six years behind its European contemporaries.

The trend has taken off in the past 12 months as more well-credentialled chefs and bakers give pizza a spin. Made with inexpensive core ingredients (flour, yeast and water), pizza has economic advantages during a cost-of-living crisis, provides a blank canvas for culinary creativity, and is popular with budget-conscious diners.

You can spot a Sydney-style pizza by its thin circular (and often long-fermented) base, puffy blistered crust, and deliciously unconventional toppings ‒ everything from smoked eel and 12-hour smoked brisket to dakgalbi (spicy Korean chicken), mostly sourced from NSW producers.

“We understand the hours, the dedication and the tough margins [fine-dining] requires, and a lot of us just want to get creative and make good food that’s accessible to everybody, on an everyday basis,” says Dale Mann, the owner-chef of new Freshwater pizzeria Ribelle, and former the head chef at Newtown’s popular Bella Brutta.

Leaning into the experimental spirit, newcomers are using toppings such as chicken and tarragon with mustard veloute (Ribelle); honey, garlic and nori (at Tenacious in Darlinghurst), and bolognese sauce, dates and sesame mayo at Calzone Zone, which has popped up at various locations.

Mann says the approach, grounded in traditional techniques, was pioneered by well-known pizzerias like Dimitri’s Pizzeria in Darlinghurst, and Bella Brutta and Westwoodin Newtown.

Dimitri’s owner-chef Ken Williams describes his style as “flavour-forward, produce-driven, yet somewhat unconventional.” Standouts like the Brussel Crow (roasted Brussels sprouts, caramelised onion jam, ricotta cream, mozzarella and pancetta) have repeatedly landed Dimitri’s on best-of lists.

At Westwood, owner-chef Mitchell Westwood was among the first to use NSW-grown and milled flour to make his light, thin and long-fermented pizza bases.

“[We] broke the norm. Typically in every restaurant I’ve worked in, [the flour] was flown in from Italy,” Westwood says.

The development of the Sydney style was further bolstered by the introduction of portable pizza ovens such as Gozney and Ooni, which made it possible for aspiring pizzaioli to open small-scale or pop-up pizzerias without prohibitive upfront costs.

City Oltra, which opened in Central Station in late 2022, began as a pop-up at Poor Toms Distillery in Marrickville, while Nathan Brindle (head chef at hatted Chippendale restaurant Ester) used portable pizza ovens at the launch of his monthly Calzone Zone pop-up in April.

“We’re trying to push things forward,” says City Oltra chef and co-owner Ben Fester.

“It’s less to do with a particular topping and more of an ethos. Not being bound by conventions or traditions, using locally sourced, single-origin flour as opposed to importing grains from across the globe, preparing and preserving local produce, supporting amazing butchers or smallgoods producers, while at the same time still trying to [create] something that can be interpreted as pizza.”

New Sydney-style pizzerias to try

Ribelle, Manly

Dale Mann, the former head chef at Bella Brutta, deliberately steers away from tradition at his new Freshwater pizzeria, appropriately named Ribelle (“rebel”, in Italian). “The name gives me an out … I didn’t want to be constrained in any way, shape or form,” Mann says. The 15-seat, BYO pizza shop has a tight selection of 10 pizzas. As a winter special, Mann has created a pizza inspired by a chicken tarragon pie. He makes a brown chicken stock, then turns it into a veloute sauce with roux, cream and mustard to cover the pizza base. He then tops the pizza with house-roasted chicken and parmesan, and once cooked, adds a final flourish of parsley and tarragon. “This idea came from trying to put the flavours of a winter favourite dish of mine, with deep roots in classical French cooking, and incorporating it into a pizza, for everyone to try something new and exciting,” Mann says.

Shop 15, 1-3 Moore Road, Freshwater, ribellepizza.com.au

Calzone Zone

Calzone Zone is a monthly pop-up pizza party from Nathan Brindle, the head chef at hatted Chippendale restaurant Ester. It launched in April with a sold-out BYO event in an unmarked Petersham warehouse, where fine-dining chefs cooked pizza in a makeshift garage kitchen; spray-painted mannequins struck provocative poses around dining tables, and, after eating their fill of pizza, diners crammed into a small underground room to dance. The menu featured restaurant-quality pizzas (both thin and thick-crust) loaded with seaweed and umami butter; Iberian ham and mustard with chunks of charred pineapple; and bolognese sauce, dates and swirls of creamy sesame mayo. “Everyone lost their s–t over that one,” Brindle says of the last-mentioned.

Check social media for event locations,instagram.com/calzonezone_

Tenacious, Darlinghurst

Yeongjin Park, the innovative South Korean baker behind Tenacious Bakehouse in Darlinghurst, says he doesn’t know what traditional Italian pizza is like – but that hasn’t stopped him from opening a night-time pizzeria at his recently renovated Darlinghurst cafe Tenacious. His vision is unique: house-made pizza dough that’s “light and chewy, like mochi” (pounded stretchy rice), and toppings inspired by popular Korean dishes such as haemul pajeon (seafood pancake, with prawns, squid, green onions and garlic chives) and dakgalbi (chicken and vegetables with spicy, gochujang-based sauce) with melted cheese. “I’ve always wanted to challenge myself … and I grabbed the chance to bring my vision to life,” Park says.

101 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, instagram.com/tenacious.pizza/