PROFILE BY BEST RESTAURANTS
Mad Pizza is a buzzing hive of fresh food, quality wine and enjoyable company. Like most good ideas, this restaurant was born out of frustration with the norm; in this case dissatisfaction with the lack of authentic, super-thin-based pizzas in Sydney. After travelling extensively and eating their way through Italy, the restaurant's founders decided to bring a little of the boot-shaped country to Darlinghurst, and established Mad Pizza in 2005. Since that time, this pizza palace has earned its stripes with the locals who jostle for tables and pack its interior most nights.
These masters of the super-thin crust rebuff the mass-produced pizza and pride themselves on using quality produce and free-range, chemical-free chicken. The pizza menu covers the gamut from meat-laden choices such as the tibia – shredded lamb shank, grilled eggplant, red onion and rocket leaves with a yoghurt dressing – to more exotic offerings like the Amalfi – sweet tiger prawns, ricotta, garlic, chilli flakes and cherry tomatoes with mint leaves – and vegetarian options such as the de Mario, which fuses roast pumpkin, crumbled fetta, chilli, mint leaves, red onion and pine nuts. Pasta-lovers can choose from a number of classics such as spaghetti meatballs, prawn linguine or pumpkin-filled ravioli. And like any good Italian restaurant, Mad Pizza e Bar understands the importance of a good grape in the glass, offering a quality range of whites, reds and bubblies – or bring along your own. Top your meal off with a few dollops of gelato for a very happy belly indeed. A resident DJ adds to the atmosphere Thursday night through to Sunday.
Lauren Barker