Take a Bite of Perth’s Best Pizza

There’s a saying that even bad pizza is pretty good. While we agree that it’s hard to find fault in the combination of baked bread and melted cheese, eating great pizza is one of life’s true pleasures. Here are seven places to get your fix in Perth.

Monsterella Pizza

This family-friendly BYO restaurant is the current darling of Perth's pizza-appreciation society and the energy of the room and difficulty of scoring a table (even on weeknights) suggests that owners Tania Nicolo and Ryan Bookless are onto a winner. Perfectly topped, gently pliable woodfired pizzas aside, the menu also includes the high-comfort likes of handmade pasta and Abruzzese grilled lamb skewers known as arrosticini.

46 Grantham Street, Wembley

(08) 9287 2949

Neighborhood Pizza Bar

If you were to describe the look of Neighborhood Pizza, “share house-chic” wouldn’t be a bad start. While the rocking soundtrack, mismatched furniture and garage-like setting speaks to its casual bent, Neighborhood takes its food seriously. The bright housemade chilli oil makes the kitchen’s crisp woodfired pizzas taste even better, while side dishes begin and end with the spinach, walnut and gorgonzola salad. Fun and then some.

7 Anvil Lane, Mount Hawthorn

0419 507 432

SEE ALSO: The 10 Best Restaurants in Perth

Lalla Rookh

Since opening its doors in 2012, this CBD bunker has developed a reputation for rock-solid Italian cooking. While housemade pasta is leading the charge, it’d be remiss to ignore the pizza – a bar menu favourite among the after-work set. The pizzas here are a study in nailing the basics: long-fermented dough, a San Marzano tomato sauce base and combinations of four toppings max (think sausage, provolone, chilli and oregano).

Lower ground, 77 St Georges Terrace, Perth

(08) 9325 7077

Pappagallo

Prepared on thinner, crisper bases than the more commonly found Naples-style pizza, the Roman equivalent is fast gaining traction in Perth. Some of the genre’s best specimens are found at Pappagallo, a perpetually buzzing eatery where elegant pizzas with the texture of Sao biscuits compete with gutsy handmade pasta for eaters’ affection. Sweeten the deal with well-priced Italian vino and you’re talking about a party everyone wants to be a part of.

250 Oxford Street, Leederville

(08) 9444 0889

Manuka Woodfire Kitchen

Heading to this cosy Freo diner specifically for pizza feels a bit like going to Disneyland just to visit the shop but Kenny McHardy applies the same care and seasonal thinking to his pizzas as he does everything cooked in his wood-burning oven. The dough is fermented low and slow, topped with pristine ingredients (fresh herbs and vegetables, housemade sausage) and two different kinds of mozzarella. Call it fast food of a higher order.

134 High Street, Fremantle

(08) 9335 3527

Image: @helenrelativestyle

L’Antica

The menu at this slick pizzeria tops out at four woodfired pizzas but L’Antica makes each count. Purists will find the lure of the margherita (cherry tomato sauce, fior di latte and basil) and marinara (cherry tomato sauce, oregano and garlic) impossible to resist. But the most interesting character is the schiacciata: the restaurant’s pizza base blown up like a balloon and stuffed with rocket, mozzarella, tomato and prosciutto.

390 South Terrace, South Fremantle

0499 433 592

Propeller

Disclaimer: Propeller doesn’t serve Italian pizza but deploys the P-word as a catch-all for its thrilling range of baked Levantine breads and flatbreads. Lebanese vegetarian manoushes come cradling eggplant and mushroom, fatayers are filled with cheese and mint, while canoe-like pides freight hot sausage, egg and cheese. Isn’t cultural diversity grand?

222 Queen Victoria Street, North Fremantle

(08) 9335 9366