The FM sussed out the extremes of Joburg pizza joints; one blisteringly new, the other a real classic.
The old
Lucio’s Pizzeria, in Northcliff, has been around for 31 years. It’s one of those mom and pop trattorias that you see in movies — only it’s wedged between a paint place and a glass shop on one of the less glam blocks of the busy Beyers Naudé arterial. But really, who cares about that?
Claudio Merlo started the place in 1987, and when he passed away in 2009 his wife Bimba and son Armando took over. Staff have been there for years, and customers are lifers.
I was four when the zanily decorated joint sprang into action. I grew up a few blocks away, but am ashamed to admit I was not a regular. Last week, in a fit of hypoglycaemia, I ordered one of Lucio’s pizzas on UberEats. I’ll put it this way: I appear to have wasted 20 years of my life.
There is nothing trendy about any of it. What arrived was a classic — a thick, but not too thick, deep-pan number. You can get a thin base but, frankly, I was in need of something deeply comforting, and this more than fitted that bill.
What I especially liked was that the pizza came heaving with topping. Actual real bacon (not those little token bits), fresh avo, dairy farms’ worth of cheese that had gone perfectly crispy on the edges. Sure, it’s not the in-vogue Neapolitan pizza of the moment, but that’s what makes it even more appealing.
For more information, visit luciospizzeria.co.za
Sarah Buitendach
Original Article: https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/life/food/2018-08-16-old-vs-new-a-tale-of-two-pizzas-in-joburg
