Firebox Pizza Hawthorn — Restaurant in Melbourne

Well hungry, I was looking for a good pizza Indeed there are plenty of options, but this one looked good, on top of being well located on the main street of Hawthorn Indeed they have pizza, as their name says it, but also pasta, salads, some snacks and desserts

I decided to go for a gourmet pizza, the pescatore (tomato base, tiger prwans, mussels, calamari, lemon, parsley). It felt super fresh, which is extra important when it comes to seafood. Worth mentoring the prawns are from South Australia, for extra freshness then. Fresh then, and with a thin base to keep giving extra value to the other ingredients, good job

To go with it, I wanted some salad. At first I was gonna go with a regular green salad. But then I noticed that a very original one on the menu: the roasted pumpkin salad, with caramelized onions, palm hearts, shaved kale, beetroot, avocado puree, hazelnut dukkah, and champagne vinaigrette! Sounded quite "crazy", which means amazing in my book. And wow, good move, this is the best salad I've had in long, and as far as my memory goes, the best salad I've had in a pizza place, ever. With adding, portions were generous, including if the avocado (too often when there's avocado in the recipe it's more there to make you buy it, but there's not much of it)

They have 3 sections to sit in, inside in front of the counter, further in there's a dining room, and outside

Students can get a 10% discount

They have kids specials

While I was there I could tell they're popular both for dine-in and takeaway, and for a reason

Oh and staff is friendly, special mention to Bruno, from Brazil, with whom I could chat, just like some other guests did while I was...

This is a hard review to write cause it is based on so much personal opinion.

The, atmosphere was great. Like the little dinning out the back. It was very cosy and cool. But music could have been a tad quieter.

The service and staff were friendly and cheerful. Great customer service and help when we ask for recommendations. They were also very busy but still had time for their customers and kept their standards high.

Food though. The popcorn chicken 🍗 was good but nothing special.

The Ragu pasta 🍝 was in al honesty so-so, it felt like some cooked spaghetti with a can of tomato, and the pulled pork from the pizza prep throwing in the bowl 😞 pretty disappointing tbh.

The pizza was the Peri Peri chicken. The dough was fresh and cooked very well. Soft but crispy and not soggy. The flavour was good but needed a kick of spice, it was very mild Peri Peri. The ingredients seem to kinda make the pizza feel soggy the the base wasn't, maybe to much Ingredients unsure about it. But tbh the pizza was missing something, it just didn't hit the spot 😕

All in all not a bad place but for me I'll be going somewhere else for pasta or pizza.

Good luck with the business very cool concept just not for me...

We are already Firebox Hawthorn regulars, because their pizzas are absolutely delicious (especially if you are vego / vegan, the options are great and the vegan cheese is actually good! The siciliana with olives is absolute chef’s kiss), but after Friday night we had to leave a 5 star review.

Before we had even had a chance to open up our pizzas at home, we had a call from the restaurant saying that they had made a mistake with my roommates order, and given us a gluten free pepperoni instead of a gluten free supreme (and can I just add that my roommate said the gluten free pizza base was one of the best he has had). This was a mistake we probably wouldn’t have bothered making a fuss about, but before I could respond, Firebox offered to deliver us the correct pizza free of charge. Within 10 minutes, our pizza had arrived.

We were so impressed by how Firebox went above and beyond for us without even being asked, we decided that a review was absolutely necessary. Delicious high quality food, great dietary options, and excellent customer service. What more could you want from your local pizza place! Couldn’t...