Hop over to SPQR, where you can get woodfired Neapolitan pizza by the slice, great for a quick feed to satisfy your pizza cravings and hunger pangs.

A 16 year-old sourdough culture and Caputo flour is combined and left to rise over 48 hours. As at other authentic Neapolitan pizza joints, SPQR’s custom-made oven cooks the pizzas in about 60 seconds to deliver crispy and blistered crusts with a bit of puff.

Order pizza by the slice from the cabinet at the pizza bar, or get whole pizzas in the dining area. Come night time, you can enjoy them with a disc jockey spinning some vinyl in the background.

There are a few ‘not pizza’ items to enjoy too, including antipasto, salads and other woodfired dishes like Porchetta. The slice of boneless roast pork has crispy, bubbled crackling, and sits on a bed of fresh fennel coleslaw. The outer sections of meat are a tad dry, but the inner parts are succulent. The refreshing salsa verde is the perfect accompaniment for this fattier cut of meat.

Both red and white pizzas are available; the white replaces the tangy San Marzano tomato base with cheese. We have one of each. On the white side of things, we try the Tartufo with truffle paste, potato, rosemary, and buffalo mozzarella. The truffle paste is earthy and fragrant, the potato adds some extra bite to the pizza, and the complementary rosemary is not too overpowering. Who says vegetarian is always boring?

The fiery-looking Amatrice pizza is topped with guanciale, chilli and pecorino. The chilli has a good kick to it, and also helps cut through the decandant and delicious little strips of fatty jowl meat. If it’s not quite spicy enough for you, there’s always chilli paste at the table that you can use to accentuate the heat.

Sadly the tiramisu has sold out, so we have the Nutella Pizza with candied oranges instead. The base of this pizza is smaller in diameter, and slightly thicker than in the savoury ones. The candied oranges add a nice citrus tang that breaks up the rich and sweet nature of the hazelnut spread, and because of the thicker base, there’s a more balanced ratio of base to topping.

Neapolitan is still my favourite style of pizza. If I’m ever in the hankering for some pizza on this side of the city, SPQR is definitely one I’d pop in to again.

Disclaimer: I was invited to SPQR as a guest, however, opinions expressed here are purely my own, and are based on my experience at the time

SPQR Pizzeria
26 Liverpool St
Melbourne VIC 3000
(03) 9671 3326
https://www.spqrpizzeria.com