Napoli Centro pizzeria — Restaurant in Sydney

Like a big warm hug! I was so happy when we discovered this place. Whenever we move to a new area one of the first things we need to establish is our new pizza place. We had a lot of trial and error - we live in Ashbury so tried most of the places in Croydon, Croydon park, Ashfield, Dulwich hill, Summer hill but never really found anything that made us properly happy... until we found Napoli Centro. Their pizzas are somehow LIGHT. Especially if you go with something like the Sofia Loren, it is like eating a tasty cloud, just incredible. The base is always a perfect mix of crispy with chewy with just a little bit of soggy and that wonderful smokey woodfired flavour. The decor and the space is... tight, chaotic and frequently noisy. It's just like being in Italy and I love it. I'm only sad that with current Covid situation we can't eat in at the moment. We still get take away but it's never quite the same - you can't beat pizza fresh from the oven. It's ironic that pizza is probably the most home-delivered food out there but it really doesn't travel well! Anyone that reviews food based on home-delivered food just isn't getting the proper experience - your delivery driver/rider doesn't care about your food and it's no good for your food to sit in a sweaty bag for however long. We instead do pickup (drive the 10 mins home as quickly as possible) and drop our pizza in a preheated oven at home for 2 minutes to re crisp the base. Not quite the same, but it gets us through until we can eat in again. Looking forward to the lifting of lockdowns so we can bring our families together again at Napoli Centro and feast on...

a really cozy and atmospheric italian restaurant with great service and food to meed all your pizza or pasta cravings. we were greeted promptly and sat down pretty quickly despite what looked like a near full house, and after a quick look at the menu we got our usual: diavola pizza, calamari rings, and a side of fries. a standard of sorts as a measure i suppose, and i can gladly say that the food here was delicious and fantastic. we devoured it all up pretty quickly if i recall. the food literally took less than 10 minutes to arrive and it felt like we were instantly served the moment we spoke to the waitress. the pizza was cooked perfectly, no charred tastes in the slightest, though i will say that the salami was a bit scarce. the calamari was actually and surprisingly good, as were the chips. they were seasoned really well and we were more than satisfied with the food. i've also tried their nutella pizza which was quite on the pricey side, nearly $20, and it was pretty good. it was expensive for what it was, but i cannot deny that it was a good. the base and the crust were super soft, though there was quite a lot of it compared to a usual pizza. it was also smaller than what i expected, and didn't really hug the size of the pizza box as i would have expected for the price unfortunately. regardless, it was a lovely dinner and a tasty treat to have!

update: nutella pizzas have been lacking unfortunately. with the most recent photo, im quite convinced the chef must have dropped a single sliced strawberry from a height of 5 metres onto the pizza. what an abomination of a...

They say don't go to the valley unless you're willing to catch a body. Well, we almost did while smashing down the awesome pies at Napoli Centro Pizzeria, a neighbourhood staple that has seemingly held it's own through the times and then some. Boasting an antique aesthetic that you're wildest dreams of San Ferdinando couldn't conjure up, this pizza palace reminds you of why the cuisine has been a flag-bearer of the boot-shaped nation for so long. The vibe and aesthetic inside is so old school that you want to pull up an ashtray and light up a Marlboro while sipping on a Sangiovese red, before and after dinner. Like any good pizzeria, the woodfire oven gas a life of it's own – a character in the play between pass and plates-to-tables. The style of pies is not all distinctly nor strictly Neapolitan... it has sturdiness under hand, a crispy undercarriage and airiness in the dough that keeps enough moisture in while really lightening the load on digestion. Cheese and sauce is well ratio'd and more importantly tempered – perhaps something not often discussed is the effect of heat on the toppings. Here it appears the chef's have mastered pulling the pie out at the right time to achieve an annexe of flavour and colour/caramelisation. So is there a reason to come to the Valley?...