Simon Cassar wrote about restaurants for years at Urban List, but he spent nearly as much time there talking about pizza. Specifically about opening a shop of his own. Now he’s made good on his word with Pizza Luna, a 30-seat pizza bar on the sleepy main street of McCrae, on the bayside of the Mornington Peninsula.
The menu is concise: nine pizzas, several local beers and a list of just a few Peninsula wines, and a cheesecake made by the family Cassar that’s available most days that they’re open. The hot ticket is the fennel and garlic pepperoni with stracciatella. There’s also a sleeper hit the locals are loving, a vegan Green Demon that brings together cashew cream, garlic, basil, zucchini, pistachio and lemon in a surprisingly zesty way.
“It’s a little bit different. It’s not New York but it’s also not traditional soft Neapolitan,” says Cassar. “It’s somewhere in between. I wanted that crispy, chewy combination which isn’t always easy to get.” So how did he get it? Pizza Luna’s story goes back to Simon’s food-writing days, where interviewing chefs and pizzaiolos often turned into a back of the napkin dough-making tutorial. After a while, talking with the likes of Jean-Paul Aziz, chef and owner at Pizzeria Magma in North Fitzroy, he decided to go pro.
Aziz isn’t the only person who contributed to making Pizza Luna a reality. Local winemakers Quealy fills the fridge with bottles robust enough to pair up with that pepperoni; Cassar’s brother, a carpenter, took care of the fit-out, and mum jumps into the prep kitchen from time to time.
It’s designed as a friendly complement to the Peninsula’s fine diners, and you can feel it from the moment you take a seat at the table. It’s Australiana over Italian aesthetics, it’s tinnies over super-trebbiano, and most importantly, it’s a price point that won’t break the bank with the pizza coming in around the $25 mark.
Just several months in, Cassar is already considering Pizza Luna’s next move: he’s going bigger with the menu, he’s expanding the drinks program, and he’s learning how to make ice-cream on his days off – which is probably why he’s been spending so much time at Pidapipo lately.
Pizza Luna, 677 Point Nepean Rd, McCrae, open 4.30pm-9pm Thurs-Sun, pizzaluna.au, @pizzaluna._
By Rick Stephens
Full disclosure: I worked with Simon at Urban List over those years he was talking about pizza, and the reality of the shop is even better than I’d expected.