Overview
Footscray's small bar scene might be booming, but its patrons have been faced with a little bit of a food conundrum. With most of these drinking dens operating sans kitchen, dinner options are largely limited to whatever nearby eateries are on the bars' delivery radars.
Enter, Slice Shop Pizza: the latest offering from Burn City Smokers' Steve Kimonides and Raphael Guthrie. Slinging New York-style pizza by the slice, as well as 18-inch pies, it's the culinary accompaniment Footscray's drinking crowd has been waiting for.
You'll find it perched on Nicholson Street, sporting just a few metres of standing room and four stools for those speedy dine-in sessions. Grab a slice to go, or order in from one of the nearby watering holes, including craft beer bar Mr West, which sits just across the street.
The owners, both locals, have transformed a former discount supermarket into a laid-back lunch and dinner pit-stop, with a new home-spun fit-out thanks to the pair's own handiwork. Neon Slice Shop signage — in the AFL Western Bulldogs' signature red, white and blue — beckons from the window.
Parker Blain.
The menu rotation runs to around seven core creations, with a daily special thrown in for good measure, and all slices kept to an easy $5. There might be a pork and fennel number — starring Italian sausage, mozzarella and roast peppers — a classic capricciosa or margherita, and maybe a mushroom, thyme and truffle concoction. Vegans will always find a plant-based pizza on offer, too.
Glimpses of the duo's other life as barbecue masters shine through the menu every now and then, too, with the likes of Burn City's brisket or some slow-smoked pig's head making the odd cameo appearance. Regardless of toppings, expect chewy, foldable New York slices, crafted on tipo 00 flour and fired in an impressive Italian Moretti Forni oven. This beauty fits ten whole 18-inch pies at once and cooks them in about five minutes flat.
Find Slice Shop Pizza at 101a Nicholson Street, Footscray. It's open for lunch from 11.30am–2.30pm, Wednesday–Friday; and for dinner from 4.30–10pm, Wednesday–Thursday and Sunday; and 4.30pm–midnight, Friday–Saturday.
Images: Parker Blain.