Italian food purists, please sit down. We’re about to have a difficult conversation. Like all eaters, I am grateful for the precious gift of pizza that la cucina vera has given the world. But while pizza might have been born Italian, it is now a global citizen.
American pizza? A lexicon of diverse regional styles. One of the planet’s best Naples-style pizza is no longer in Campania but resides in Tokyo, while banana curry pizze are a thing in Sweden. And then there’s Australian pizza culture complete with its Super-Supremes, end-of-year wind-ups and delivery drivers named Dougie. It’s these sorts of memories that fuel Lola’s, a new pizzeria opened by Harriet Roxburgh and Harry Peasnell (owners of nearby fresh-faced sandwich shop Peggy’s) at the non-striker’s end of Freo’s famous Cappuccino Strip.
Like the Capitanos, Bella Brutas, Ciao Mates and Australia’s other new-wave pizza shops, Lola’s celebrates nostalgia while borrowing liberally from the wine bar playbook. The service is easy-going; the charming 50-seat diner includes counter and outdoor seating; and the drinks list offers lo-fi vino alongside conventional wines, tap beers and cocktails. You’ll find the booze listed on the flipside of the single-page menu that details whatever punchy Italian-ish small plates the kitchen is currently pushing.
If you’re lucky, those supple steamed mussels in a daredevil acqua pazza sauce will be on, strewn with flecks of shiokoji and served with garlicky flatbread in one heck of a chilli mussels remake. Slices of raw kingfish loll in a puddle of smoked buttermilk, the fish smartly crunched up with pennies of sliced baby cucumber and green birdseye chilli. If you wanted, you could make a meal entirely of these plates plus a couple of glasses of Si Vintners Baba Yaga and leave happy, although you’d only be enjoying one slice of the proverbial Lola’s pie. Better decide what kind of (pizza) pie you’re after then: either the sprawling, family-sized regular pizza and its biscuity, vaguely New York slice-style base; or the very filling (and very limited) deep-pan pizze, a rectangle of comfort eating that’s two-thirds dough, one-third molten and crackly cheese, and absolutely not the sort of thing you should consider eating by yourself. Both styles slap and each is a welcome addition to local pizza options.
When GT visits, dessert was still a work in progress, but considering that cheery gelateria Chicho Gelato is directly across the road, diners are in no danger of missing out on sweets: lemon ricotta or matcha raspberry and white chocolate gelato, anyone? Both manage to take something classically Italian and brilliantly reimagine it for modern-day WA. We’re down for more than a slice.