Bold new adventures with a humble pizza - IOL

A roasted tomato, fresh basil and pistachio pesto pizza.

Open: Wednesday to Saturday 7am to 10pm, Sunday 7am to 8.30pm

The Poet fancied a pizza and I suggested Doughed, since I hadn’t been to their new premises yet. They moved about a month ago.

And so she, myself and her family spend a wonderfully relaxing afternoon sitting in the garden. The new spot is such an improvement from the little converted garage they were operating out of in Gordon Road. The garden is shaded, it’s convivial, in fact every table is full. There’s a nice chilled vibe, and the pizza oven is doing overtime.

Mushroom risotto arancini in a spicy tomato sauce.

Yes, when they’re busy, there may be delays, but we weren’t in a rush.

And then there’s Doughed’s philosophy of doing pizzas properly. It was afterall on honeymoon in Naples and Sicily that owners David and Ishara Chetty fell in love with a proper pizza - not one of these American creations we’ve come to know.

They’re also not licensed but didn’t mind that we brought a bottle of wine. I instead tried one of their iced coffee creations, while Kartik enjoyed the virgin mojito.

The menu is small and limited. There’s the pizza classics, a Margherita, a roasted pomodoro and a Sicilian style pizza with anchovies, capers and olives. Then there are what they call the pizza rossos - which come with a tomato sauce and the pizza biancos, with cheese. All options can also be ordered as a pasta, or lasagne or as a calzone - the famed fold-over pizza.

A butter chicken pizza with coriander aioli.

There are a couple of starters and a few main dishes on the chef’s Specials menu, but it’s essentially about the pizza dough.

The Poet ordered a roasted pomodoro pizza for us to share. This was roasted tomatoes and onions topped with mozzarella and fresh basil with pistachio pesto (R170). While there was very little evidence of the pistachio pesto, the pizza was lovely, all those chunks of sweet roast tomato with spikes of fresh basil. I ordered the arancini al tartufu (R115) which was three small small crisp balls of mushroom and truffle risotto in a napoli sauce. The sauce was more a spicy pepper sauce, which was needed as sadly the arancini were bland. Maybe next time I’ll try the spinach and ricotta tortellini with burnt butter next time.

An oxtail pizza covered in too much gravy.

For mains the pizza options are all interesting. There’s a three cheese option with mozzarella, white cheddar and feta with chilli honey. There’s roasted carrots, garlic and mushrooms in balsamic, prawns with coconut coriander sauce and roast lemons, as well as more conventional options like Napoli and pepperoni. 

Arjun favoured the Butter chicken option, topped with a coriander aioli (R185). I must admit I’ve never been a fan of chicken on a pizza. I can so easily go dry, and it’s often swimming in some sort of sauce. Here the butter chicken had good flavour, but sadly my concerns were confirmed. Vivek went for a special, an oxtail pizza (R245). This sounded exciting but it really didn't work - there was too much gravy - and not enough meat - swimming around on top of the pizza which meant you couldn’t really eat it with your hands. And all that gravy made things go soft very quickly.

Spicy spatchcocked half chicken cooked in the pizza oven with roasted veg.

Kartik went for a Caprese sandwich (R80) which was basically a mini calzone stuffed with mozzarella, tomato and basil. He was happy. While the poet had the Poet had the spicy marinated spatchcock half chicken (R190) grilled in the pizza oven. The chicken here was succulent, the flavours good, and we both loved the seasonal roast veg that came alongside it.

I had been tempted to try the melanzane alla parmigiana but as I knew I would be tasting a lot of pizzas instead I settled for a starter of truffled mac and cheese (R95). I got the truffle flavour and liked the fact that the sauce properly coated everything (i.e. it wasn’t gluey), but sadly it desperately needed more cheese. I resisted the urge to show chef how to do it

The Poet finished with an Affogato over her pistachio ice-cream, while I enjoyed a pistachio cannoli (R48.50). We finished with coffees.