Pizza d’Asporto Yarraville

Pizza D’Asporto is a family-run pizzeria serving up some of the best Italian pies in the west. “Da asporto” means “takeaway” in Italian – and that’s just how this place began. Husband and wife Claude and Antoinette Acquaro started selling their perfectly puffy takeaway pizzas in Williamstown in 2013. As it turns out, the locals loved it so much they didn’t want to wait out the car ride home to start eating. So, the Acquaros opened Italian restaurants in Williamstown, Yarraville and Essendon – which today they run with their sons Anthony and Lorenzo.

With the new restaurants came an expanded menu, including the family-recipe casarecce with pork and fennel ragu, house-made arancini and a handful of Italian salads. But the pizza is still the main event here – one that Claude’s been working towards for his entire life. At seven, he learnt to make pizzas with his uncle, and he’s invested his lifetime of practice into these beloved pies. The team uses a house blend of different Italian flours for the dough, which is then cold fermented for 72 hours, topped with high-quality ingredients and fired in the Middleby Marshall conveyor oven. The result is a hybrid of Neapolitan- and Roman-style pizzas – with the airy crust of the former and the crispiness of the latter.

Flavours span classics such as the mainstay Margherita to the popular Gamberetti – with a San Marzano tomato base, Italian mozzarella, Western Australian king prawns, basil and a kick of chilli. There’s also a menu of white-base pizzas, which might elevate porcini mushrooms or broccolini to main character status. There are also drinks including Australian and Italian wines, classic cocktails and Italian beers.

The Yarraville spot is the largest of the lot, with 160 seats and a communal outdoor area. In the warmer months, the astro turf-lined park out the front is peppered with opened pizza boxes and diners splayed out on picnic rugs.