400 Gradi

Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to win a voucher to dinner at 400 Gradi from Sweet Cherrie Pie. At the time, 400 Gradi had just been crowned as having the world's best margherita pizza, and as a result bookings were scarce, so it took us this long to use our prize.  Even months down the track, I had to make a reservation 3 weeks in advance for a Tuesday night, and the only slot they could give me was 8:15pm! I decided this was a good sign to indicate that the food should be good (because being deemed as having the world's best margherita is obviously not enough).

We arrived at 8:15pm on the dot, and the restaurant was packed! We hadn't anticipated this at all! We were quickly shown to our table, handed menus, offered drinks and we set out to make decisions on what we should order.

The menu offered all the standard Italian options, starting with antipasti, pizza, pasta, risotto, the more substantial meaty mains, and desserts. We settled on a couple of pizzas to share. The margherita was obviously the first choice, and for the second pizza, we decided on a pumpkin and rocket pizza.

The pizzas arrived in about 20 minutes, piping hot and with oozy cheese. We wasted no time in digging in, starting with the famous margherita.

Now I know I've already mentioned the margherita half a dozen times already, but let me assure you, it is worth every mention. I'm lucky enough to regularly have homemade woodfired pizzas which I thought were the best in the world, but the 400 Gradi pizza was even better than what I'm used to (let's hope there aren't any Russo's reading this!).

Let's start with the dough; it was bready without being too chewy, thin enough without being too crisp and it had the beautiful smokiness that the woodfired cooking process imparts. All a margherita has is sauce, basil and mozarella, so you'd think that there can't be much variation, but 400 Gradi had perfected each of these elements to create the perfect combination. The sauce was full of flavour, the basil was fresh and imparted a beautiful aroma and the fresh mozarella was soft and oozy, just the way I like it. I really can't express how delicious this pizza was, no amount of flowery language will do it justice.

After the margherita I wasn't sure if it was worth trying another pizza, after all, I had already hit the jackpot, but since when have I ever said no to food?!

The second pizza was lined with a white sauce, thinly sliced roast pumpkin, soft goats cheese, pine nuts, and dressed with rocket. I'm a big fan of fresh greens on a pizza post cooking, and the rocket worked beautifully with all the other ingredients. It made for a delicious pizza, but alas, for me, it didn't compare the the margherita.

After the pizzas we decided to indulge in some dessert. The menu was full of scrumptious options, so we did what any indecisive people would do, and ordered a tasting platter. The platter came with three different desserts, a honey pannacotta, a lemon tart and a nutella crepe.

The honey pannacotta was perfect, full of honey flavour and the right amount of wobble. The lemon curd in the lemon tart was also delicious, but the pastry was not the greatest. And the nutella crepe was great, but seemed a little less refined in comparison to the other two desserts.

The meal at 400 Gradi was definitely on the steep side, especially for pizza, but it was delicious. If you could ever imagine a fine dining pizza experience, 400 Gradi is it. And if you can't imagine it, get yourself to 400 Gradi, because it is an experience everyone should undergo.