Papi's Pizza — Restaurant in Melbourne

In my view, there are two main types of pizza in Melbourne: "Aussie style" pizza with tons of various toppings pushed right to the edge of the crust and the classic artisan Italian style pizza, often wood fired, thin crust, and with a smaller amount of toppings. Normally, I prefer the Aussie style because I don't see pizza as a serious meal, and I view the Italian style as a bit of rip off. Most Italian style pizzas disappoint me with their floppiness and heavy outter crust. So, I didn't go to Papi's with high hopes, but, boy, was I surprised. Papi's has mastered the perfect Italian style crust. When I picked up my first piece of margarita I was totally stunned by the perfect crisp and the total lack of flop. This was cooked perfectly: light, crisp, and fluffy at the crust. As is standard with Italian style pizzas, the toppings are not lavish, but the quality is 1st class and the flavours are beautifully balanced. We had three very different types of pizza, but they were all excellent. Perhaps the crust was a little big, but you could order tasty dipping sauce to dip your crust into; an inspired idea. In addition to pizza, there are some excellent starters (we enjoyed calamari, arrancini, and roasted carrots), and a nice drinks list with everything at a reasonable price. Service was friendly and efficient, even on a very busy holiday night. I still prefer Aussie style pizza, but Papi's makes one of the best Italian style pizzas I...

I had a bad service experience at Papi’s when I ordered take away pizza tonight. I placed an order online with a pickup 30 min later. When I got there they asked me to come back 10-15 min later, which I did. After getting back I waited another 30 min and asked 3 times about my order status to be told it wasn’t ready. They did actually make the food in the meantime, place it on top of the oven, and left it there for 15 min forgetting to tell me it was ready…!! When I asked again about my order status, they took it off the oven and gave it to me, but now it was cold! We had to put it in the oven when we got home.

The kitchen and front of house was under a lot of stress and confusion through disorganisation, there were even waitress tears. On top of that they got another couples’ order wrong while I was there and they we’re waiting forever too.

They were short staffed which was definitely a factor. However, I was unhappy with the way that I was treated and I was even blamed for their service issues. It affected my experience. The food quality which was not good due to their stress. I would have preferred it if they had accepted their issues, apologised for keeping me waiting 75 min and did their best to resolve it in a amicable way.

Sorry, I’m just being honest guys. That was my experience and I didn’t enjoy it. I won’t be going back there I...

The pizzas were amazing – real wood fired fare; the margherita was as simple as it should've been and absolutely delicious, and the sopressa one was just spicy enough without being uncomfortable, and with enough cheese to be able to taste but without being overloaded. All the other pizzas on the menu looked incredible too!

Unfortunately though... we weren't at all impressed by the sauces (the blue cheese one was passable but not amazing, but something definitely didn't seem right with the special sauce). The chips were a bitter disappointment – not shoestring at all as stated on the menu, but more like your standard frozen kebab shop-style chips, and as soggy and mushy as they come. We also didn't realise until way too late that we didn't get the drinks we ordered.

In fairness, we did rock up during peak tourist season and they seemed insanely busy, so given all the other amazing reviews on here hopefully it was just an off night... I'd love to come back here when I'm in the area and give it another chance because the pizzas were genuinely good enough to save...