Baby Pizza

Chris Lucas is throwing his hat into the restaurant ring again with Baby Pizza, the newly-born cafe and pizzeria that’s popped up where Pearl used to live.

Inside the cavernous 100 seat space you’ll find the familiar noise, bustle and whoosh of Lucas’ older child Chin Chin. On one side a small army of chefs chop, sizzle and sauté away producing all manner of excellently aromatic Italian dishes. If you like you can perch yourself at the bar to get close to the action, sort of like Lassie pressing his nose up at the butcher’s window.

Baby’s interior is playful, and by that I mean it’s got a neon penis and vagina sign outside the bathroom. Elsewhere there’s another neon sign I thought resembled a pair of Le Specs Aviators, only to be informed it was in fact a pair of balls.

Neon nads aside, the food’s worth a mention too. Many charming and handsome Italian wait staff can guide you through the menu pronouncing cabonara and quattro formaggi more elegantly than I ever could. The brown paper menu lists over 20 pizzas, all 12 inches wide and made molino sul clitunno – which is a nice way of saying  they use a slow milling method and natural grains. No pizza’s over $20 and toppings cover all the classics like Margherita and Salsiccia, plus special pan fried and grilled pizzas. No substitutions. You can get takeaway though.

Flip the menu over and there’s a range of starters, pastas, salads and sweets, everything from charcuterie and cheese boards to grilled calamari, rigatoni ragu, blue-eye carpaccio and of course meatballs. This time with tomato sauce served on polenta. If you can’t decide you can order the Banchetto  ($66 pp, min two peeps) and the Baby staff will bring you a bunch of their favourite stuff. If you’ve got room left there’s sweets like tiramisu and gelati.

Oh and breakfast is served from 7am to 11.30am daily. With stuff like made to order blood orange juice, breakfast sandwiches, panini, piadina and pizza. That’s a lot of P’s.

Will lightning strike twice for Lucas and his merry chefs? Probably. Baby is fun and loud and it has neon nads. It all starts tomorrow.

BABY PIZZA
631 – 633 Church Street, Richmond
9421 4599
open daily 7am till late
babypizza.com.au
facebook.com/Baby3121
@OhBaby3121

Photos by Oli Sansom.