Imported from the Melbourne suburbs and inspired (in part) by New York, here’s why this Gasworks spot deserves your attention.
It was a really nothingburger of a story. Or nothingpizza, perhaps.
A Newstead local visited Sunnyside Sliced, took a long-range video of the menu board, and baulked at the price of an $80 pizza. TikTok had a conniption.
The clue was in the name, of course. This is a slice shop, New York-style, built to sell pizza by the slice. And if it’s New York-style, that means an entire pizza, if you’re inclined to buy one, is a monster – as much as 2½ times the size of a typical Napoli-style pizza.
Yes, some of the pricing for the whole pizzas has gone up at Newstead – a $20 premium for the White Truffle pizza being the most notable indexation over the original Mentone shop, in south-east Melbourne. But just as many are cheaper at Newstead, and going back to the slices – they tend to be the same price or cheaper than down south.
“I’m trying to be that business where your 17-year-old who works at Woolworths can buy a slice on her way home twice a week and isn’t second-guessing the price,” Cengiz says. “That’s why I’ve gone in at $7 for a cheese slice and pepperoni slice because I want my brand to be for everybody.”
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Cengiz and the TikToker (who, to be fair, likely never intended his post to go that viral) eventually made good, but it put an unnecessary downer on a debut that’s been in the pipeline for three years, give or take, after the original Mentone restaurant opened in 2021.
Ask Cengiz about the origins of Sunnyside Sliced and you might get a false start or two, as he takes a moment to trace it back himself. The Mentone restaurant was originally intended to pay homage to the food of Brooklyn, he says, and ended up instead paying homage to his family’s history in pizza.
Cengiz’s background at the time was in finance, but he’d grown up working at his dad’s pizza shop, Ali’s Pizza, in Cranbourne, deep in Melbourne’s south-east – “back in 1991, customers didn’t know what olives were”, he says, laughing – and, during a stint in New York, he’d fallen hard for Joe’s Pizza, the iconic West Village slice shop.
“It was Manhattan at midnight on a Wednesday, and the place was pumping with people having a good time,” he says. “For me, it was wabi-sabi, beautifully imperfect.”
Mentone is designed for dining in as much as it is takeaway. Newstead, which opened at the end of January, is more of a straightforward counter operation inside Gasworks Plaza. But the offering across the two is much the same, revolving around pizza served by the slice.
The menu splits the difference between New York-inspired round and pan pizza.
Round slices include the Sunnyside Cheese (a blend of different Italian mozzarellas and aged parmesan, finished with basil), the Pepperoni Classic (provolone and pepperoni), the Hella Honey (provolone, chorizo, jalapeno, Bippi hot honey) and the Red Truffle (tartufo cheese, mushroom, black truffle pate).
The pan pizza is prepared in custom-made rectangular pans sourced from the United States. Both proofed and baked for longer, the result is a thick, airy crust with a crisp, olive oil-fried base.
Toppings include the New Mexico (Napoli tomato, provolone, chorizo, capsicum, onion, jalapeno), the Pickle Vodka (three cheese, vodka sauce and shallots, finished with a dill pickle sauce by Mat’s Hot Shop) and the White Truffle (tartufo cheese, mushroom, caramelised onion, black truffle pate).
There’s also a trio of sub sandwiches and a pair of sides, but the pasta dishes from Mentone haven’t made the trip north.
For his pizza, Cengiz is using Caputo semolina flour imported from Italy and ferments his dough for two days in a temperature controlled glass room that sits separate from the baking operation. Out front is a triple-deck Moretti Forni pizza oven with a refractory brick baking surface for whole pizzas, and a triple-deck Moretti Forni conveyor oven for the slices.
There’s a stainless-steel counter out front and a handsome menu up top, and that’s all there is to it. Much of the personality of the shop is expressed through its cute branding, that’s courtesy of Pete Johnson of CIP Creative.
Cengiz says, all TikTok posts aside, the reception in Newstead has been positive, with the store’s first week matching his best week in relatively sleepy Mentone.
“I honestly couldn’t tell you clearly how much money Mentone is making right now,” he says. “But that’s why I’m doubling down on the brand and expansion.
“This is such a different beast, 73 square metres compared to 200 square metres. But I’m already learning a lot and meeting new people. You can see it opening new doors.”
Open daily 11am-9pm
Gasworks Plaza, 76 Skyring Terrace, Newstead
Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
