Written and photographed by Annia Hsu

Opened in December 2011, the new Spizza outlet at East Coast Road is full of surprises. After ten years in the business, Spizza is back with a wholly novel contemporary concept – with full length glass panels and soft, warm yellow lighting. The show kitchen right in the heart of the restaurant grabs your attention, where you can enjoy watching your orders be freshly prepared and sent into the custom-built wood-fired oven. It breaks all the barriers between your dish and its ingredients, bringing you the real story of how your food came about, rather than just be fed a typical meal from the central kitchen.

The one on the right is Rebecca, the left is Ursula.

You can’t eat at Spizza without eating pizza. Not for the first ten times, anyway. Their newest addition to the pizza family – Rebecca ($18) – is white pizza with mozzarella, gorgonzola, cooked ham, and sun-dried tomatoes sprinkled with a healthy dose of rucola. Already, you can’t go wrong with the combination. While one would think that the mozzarella and gorgonzola would war to take the limelight, they actually complement each other, with gorgonzola winning by a slight margin with an additional bite usually not found in pizzas. Hence, the overwhelming taste of cheese is punctuated by sporadic bursts of pleasant sourness that keeps you on your toes while you enjoy the slice.

For salmon lovers, you cannot miss Ursula ($19), pizza with tomato, mascarpone, spinach and smoked salmon with a generous amount of capers piled on top. For those who appreciate salmon smoked to perfection, with the slight but not overwhelming tinge of bitterness that penetrates through the flesh, this pizza is on the top of your to-try list. The mascarpone works extremely well with the salmon, an interesting rally back and forth with a yummy dollop of the cream scattered randomly about the pizza, surprising your taste buds every now and then with the dash of sourness to alleviate the mediocrity of just smoked salmon.

Of course, you can’t forfeit giving the gondola-shaped pizzas a try. Isabella in Gondola Shape ($19) is a Venice-inspired boat-shaped pizza which wraps in the tomato, mozzarella and parma ham nicely, with rucola salad on top. This type of pizza boasts a thicker, fluffier crust, so even if you don’t like Italian thin crust pizzas, you can still dine at Spizza!

Though the Isabella does not have as strong a cheesy flavour as Rebecca, it isn’t any less enjoyable because the fluffy crust more than makes up for the extra chew. The thick crust paired with the juicy interior of melted cheese and thinly sliced ham gives the dish an oomph as sour and sweet mesh into one beautiful flavour. Not to mention, the rucola salad balances the saltiness of the prosciutto, so you don’t have to keep drinking water to keep the thirst at bay.

Spizza is not just about pizza – they make fantastic pastas too! The Squid Ink Taglierini ($17) is a special flavoured pasta of the month, made with wholewheat Fusilli as a healthier and yummier choice. It gives it a rough texture, making you feel fuller while eating less – good for the health conscious! Don’t let the grey colour of the pasta put you off – the squid ink is kneaded into the dough to give it a light, but distinct, taste. It is not something that you can put your finger on, but if your taste buds are well-tuned into the food you eat, you’ll appreciate the chef’s masterful creation. The pasta is tossed with home-made tomato sauce paired with soft, chewy prawns and squid rings cooked to perfection. It gives you the sweet and sour taste that you can eat forever, unlike creamy pastas. A truly beautifully presented seafood dish.

Spizza hasn’t only been working on their main dishes, either. The new appetizer, Portobello Al Forno ($12), consists of two large juicy Portobello mushrooms covered with a generous amount of Bolognese sauce and Taleggio cheese, nicely oven-baked and paired with olive oil imported specially from Italy. The mushrooms are soft, juicy, and full of zest, with the slight bitterness of mushroom contrasting with the strong flavour of Bolognese.

And if you’re really hungry, order the homemade Gnocchi ($17) with gorgonzola, cream and cooked ham, heaven for cheese lovers. The gnocchi has the chewy texture of the Japanese mochi, except that it is a lot thicker and more solid. It goes perfectly baked with cheese and cream, and every bite is a burst of a myriad of flavours. The portion is definitely for sharing, though, or you can expect to only be able to stomach that one dish for the rest of the meal.

End of your dinner with their new dessert: Olive E Vanilla ($7), chocolate cake made in-house with extra virgin oil instead of butter and served with a scoop of gelato vanilla ice-cream. The interior of the cake is light and fluffy, not interested in overwhelming you with chocolate-y taste of any kind, but the layers of semi-hardened chocolate on top and in between layers creates a melodious harmony so that you get real chocolate in chocolate cake, and not just the flavouring. It is a dessert that is sweet but not overbearingly so, a perfect end to the flour-filled dinner one usually has at Spizza.

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Spizza East Coast

Address: 217 East Coast Road #01-01 Tides
Tel: +65 6440 8300

Opening Hours: 12pm to 2.30pm & 6pm to 10.30 Daily for Dine-in, Take Away and Delivery

Website: http://www.spizza.sg/