X-Factor: The Difference Between Great and Excellent Pizza Restaurants in Melbourne
Here at Cucina Dolce, we often get a lot of questions regarding our delicious food and award-winning pizzas. One of the frequently asked questions we receive from our customers is this: “What’s the difference between great and excellent pizza restaurants?” Our response is usually to ask the question back to our customers. They begin to think deep and ask themselves why they keep coming back to our stores.
For first-time customers, they, too, don’t know what the answer is. That’s why we’ve collated the factors the differentiate great and excellent pizza restaurants in Melbourne, just like Cucina Dolce.
It’s All About the Ingredients
Quality ingredients are one of the best ways to differentiate an excellent authentic Italian restaurant from every pizza chain. Gourmet dishes served in award-winning restaurants are always made with the highest-quality and freshest ingredients.
In making the pizza, experienced pizzaiolos use the best flour, olive oil, tomato sauce, cheeses, and other toppings. An excellent restaurant will go above and beyond to ensure they are serving the best pizzas with the best ingredients.
They usually establish and maintain a good relationship with local grocers and the produce market to get the freshest ingredients right off the bat. While these ingredients may come at a price, the combination of fresh, delicious, and savoury goodness are the reasons why the customers keep coming back for more.
On the other hand, ordinary pizza chains and other restaurants will simply use ingredients that are not carefully sourced. What’s worse is they will buy them in bulk and store the ingredients for as long as possible. This only means that you’ll be eating a dish that’s full of preservatives.
Moreover, a lot of the ingredients, including meat and cold cuts have been frozen for a long time before being put on the pizza. Compared to all the ingredients used at a gourmet pizza restaurant, they are not kept fresh and have usually been pre-packed rather than hand-picked that very day.
Why Freshness Makes a Difference?
While some people think that every pizza will always taste delicious no matter what, having the freshest ingredients will spell the difference between a tasty and mouth-watering pizza. That’s why Italian pizza restaurants in Melbourne, like Cucina Dolce, always use high-quality ingredients in all dishes.
More than anything, fresh and gourmet ingredients are also generally healthier. They don’t contain a lot of preservatives. They can also retain as many nutrients as possible.
The Crust That Takes It Home
One of the most obvious differences you can notice in a gourmet and authentic pizza made by an excellent restaurant is the dough. Its texture and shape difference are extremely visible.
Excellent restaurants offer a thinner and crispier base compared to pizza chains. If you order a thin-crust pizza, you usually get that satisfying crunch. However, when you order a thin crust pizza from a regular pizza parlour, it’s usually dense and stiff. Worse is that it can’t even hold a lot of toppings, so the toppings on the pizza slice may not look enticing and scrumptious.
The differences in the pizza doughs are absolutely non-negotiable. Excellent restaurants fare better when it comes to making pizza dough because of the techniques and ingredients used. Pizza chains will often use flour, water, and a bit of salt to create their pizza dough. Gourmet pizza restaurants will take time in making the dough by putting yeast and other ingredients, kneading it a lot to form gluten, and allowing the dough to rise.
This method takes a lot more time and effort. However, it makes an incredibly tasty and textured pizza base in the end. Some pizza chains forego these steps to save time and money, and the result is a brittle and tasteless pizza base.
Toppings to Crust Ratio: Looking for That delightful crunch?
Pizza chains tend to load toppings on their pizzas to hide the cardboard-like texture of the pizza base. You will never experience this in an excellent restaurant.
Gourmet pizzas are always handcrafted to perfection. Pizzaiolos use the classic Neapolitan style to ensure that the pizza bases stay light and retain tchewy taste and texture. They guarantee that you can taste the savoury goodness in every bite.
Better and Healthier Choices
It’s no secret that artisan wood-fired pizzas taste better. However, did you know that these pizzas also offer a lot of health benefits? Restaurants offering gourmet pizzas use the freshest ingredients, including healthy vegetables like tomatoes, spinach, olives, mushrooms and more.
High-quality ingredients and a wide variety of healthy toppings mean your pizza will be packed with vitamins and far less of the unhealthy additives that come with more processed food.
Other than that, a wood-fired oven cooks pizzas much faster and retains more nutrients in the toppings. Longer cooking times may deplete these vitamins and nutrients, reducing the overall nutritional value of the pizza to a guilt-inducing snack.
Good Overall Experience
Providing a good overall experience by creating a memorable atmosphere and offering a friendly, personalized service is a notable trait of an excellent restaurant. Prompt customer service in a calm and clean environment helps enhance the guests’ overall experience.
The staff should interact with your guests courteously while maintaining a positive and friendly tone. Servers should also know the menu well, deliver guests’ food and drinks on time, and quickly address any issues that an unsatisfied guest may have. This may be very different from pizza chains since they tend to provide a more fast-paced and impersonal service which can affect the customers’ dining experience.
Taste the Award-Winning Pizzas in Chelsea, Visit Cucina Dolce
For the best gourmet pizza in Melbourne, look no further than Cucina Dolce. Here at Cucina Dolce, we understand your needs and we go the extra mile so you can consider us the best Italian pizza restaurant in Melbourne.
Over the years, we have seen the way people can come together over a delicious pizza, and we continue to be a part of those magical moments. For more details and enquiries, you can call us on 03 9772 9091 or send us an email at fred@cucinadolce.com.au.
