Sandy Bay Beach Woodfired Pizza

LOCATION
Long Beach esplanade, Lower Sandy Bay.

PROFILED BY DE GROOTS MEDIA
With over ten years’ trading at Sandy Bay’s favourite safe swimming beach, it’s hard to imagine Long Beach esplanade without Sandy Bay Beach Woodfired Pizza. On this chilly evening the cosy interior draws in dog walkers, beach lovers and families. It’s warm inside with the magnificent oven ablaze. We snaffle a window table – part of the fun of eating here is enjoying the exquisite riverscape with its passing parade of boats, joggers, kayaks, and the occasional courageous swimmer.

The menu is a mix of traditional and gourmet choices, with pizza bread starters and fresh side salads. The pizza is consistently good is minimal on kilojoules with a slim, non-greasy crust and a low-fat mozzarella and cheddar blend. Vegans can choose soy cheese, while gluten-free bases are available for the wheat-intolerant. Here, what’s good for the pizza is also good for the planet, so all ingredients come from local producers to minimise the paddock-to-plate journey. For delicate flavour, there’s Tasmanian smoked salmon and brie, or Huon Valley honey brown and button mushrooms. There’s a specialty wallaby mettwurst with Tasmanian pepper berry chutney, and a super Tassie seafood pizza with shrimp, crab, fresh fish and calamari.

It’s hard to resist the gorgeous Greek spinach and fetta – loaded with spinach and olives, it’s tasty, healthy, and great as a half-and-half with something spicier like the pepperoni. But tonight’s specials tempt us with a roast pumpkin, baby spinach, sage, fetta and Spanish onion creation, which we order with one half sundried tomato pesto.

A small boy at the neighbouring table grins at us through his pizza mouthful while we wait while outside, a cruise boat sails over the bay. Before we know it, our dinner arrives hot out of the oven. As always, it’s deliciously filling. Too filling for dessert pizza this time – but if you fancy a sweet treat, the raspberry marshmallow melt is sticky heaven with a dollop of Tassie-made Valhalla ice cream.

Merridy Anne Pugh