With a former Pizza Madre chef, long-fermented dough and mozzarella smoked in the wood-fired oven, it’s easy to see why the community has embraced Ember in Forestville.
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If you’re compiling a list of Sydney’s best places to grab a slice, Forestville’s Ember Sourdough Pizza deserves a high chart position. It opened in July after pop-ups at Turramurra’s Flour Shop, and its presence at one of my favourite bakeries is why I first took notice.
Flour Shop owners Parag Panjwani and Anu Haran are key to Ember’s origin story in another way. For five years, the couple travelled every Monday to dine at Marrickville’s Pizza Madre (a 90-minute commitment from their home in Sydney’s north). Pizzaiolo Gia Bao Tran, also known as Brian, clocked that they really liked his toppings and dough (Haran even worked at Pizza Madre for a bit).
So when Tran considered relocating to Newcastle to establish a pizzeria, Panjwani intervened and convinced him to stay here. The pair now run Ember Sourdough Pizza, where the margherita recalls Madre’s version, just remastered for Ember. Mozzarella from Marrickville cheesemaker Vannella is smoked for two hours in the wood-fired oven (adorably nicknamed Burney), before it’s added to each tomato-flavoured, basil-topped base.
A margherita is a good way to size up a pizzeria, but Ember’s 72-hour-fermented dough gets stretched into several inventive creations that are also worth ordering. Charred broccolini pizza is a knockout – it’s banked with a caramel-sweet blitz of confit garlic and layered with the creamy two-cheese ooze of fior di latte and stracciatella. Enjoy it with XO sauce that’s meaty with pancetta, shrimp paste and scallops (its garlicky aroma has reportedly drawn people to the shop in a Pied Piper-style haze) or vegetarian chilli crisps crumbled over each slice.
Those spiced chips cleverly maximise serrano and habanero remnants rescued from Ember’s chilli oil and oven-crisps them with shallots. The pizzeria makes many flavour-enhancing points with its no-waste approach: honey is blitzed with chilli oil leftovers, for instance, generating a spicy-sweet drizzle that makes the pepperoni topping with whipped ricotta even better.
The squeezed fruit pivotal to Ember’s ultra-refreshing lemonade is turned into cleaning liquid, while the zest is saved for marinating clams that are fired with a tom-yum butter topping (this riffs on ngheu hap sa, a Vietnamese dish Tran grew up with, where steamed clams are flavoured with lemongrass and chilli). That zest also becomes the lemon-cream foundation of a pizza crowned with highly snackable zucchini chips.
Then there are pickles, the result of Ember’s failed charcuterie board. These zucchini slices, preserved with mustard, apple cider vinegar and fennel, are now layered with pork and fennel sausages from Marrickville’s Whole Beast Butchery, confit garlic and fior di latte. My friend Caro calls this winning combination “cheeseburger pizza” for good reason.
Ember’s tiramisu is caffeinated with Flour Shop’s leftover coffee shots. Sponge is baked when the oven’s not in pizza-blistering mode, soaked in espresso and vodka, and layered with marsala-spiked mascarpone. It sounds rich in theory, but the reality is a lightly creamy, highly spoonable dessert – something you can handle after multiple rounds of toppings and dough.
“We literally judge our pizza based on how many people send back crusts on plates,” says Panjwani. “Right now, it’s very, very little. I’m surprised how many kids finish crusts.”
Ember’s pizza is light enough that you can vaporise each slice with lightning speed, but the toppings provide enough heft to send you into “full mode” once dinner is over. My plates remained crust-free, particularly given Panjwani’s great advice to dip them into Ember’s chilli condiment. The pantry staple is smoky and deeply flavoured and one of the best chilli oils I’ve ever tasted. Instead of the whip-crack pain of hot spice, the fermented flavour blooms, redirects and outfoxes your expectations. Definitely buy a bottle to take home.
Ember’s community-minded approach means there are gluten-free bases and (with a day’s notice) vegan cheese that Tran makes from almond ricotta. Beers are stocked from nearby breweries, such as Bucketty’s in Brookvale, and Panjwani hopes to trial returnable pizza boxes to cut down on cardboard use.
In a town where you can get Roman-style rectangles and supersized American-style serves, Ember’s pizza stands out because it summarises the seasons – or passing week – in vivid ways. It archived winter with osso bucco and mushroom ragu, and spring’s sunlit flavours will soon give way to deep summer’s haul of eggplant, tomato and capsicum. It is pizza is worth pausing for.
The low-down
Atmosphere: Tiny, friendly pizzeria with a fit-out as colourful as its toppings
Go-to dishes: Charred broccolini pizza with confit garlic puree and stracciatella ($32); pork and fennel sausage pizza with fior di latte and Zuni pickles ($32); margherita with smoked mozzarella ($24)
Drinks: Beers from local breweries and a tight list of Australian wines stretching from the Central Ranges to Margaret River
Cost: About $70 for two, excluding drinks
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
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