Wedgetail Woodfire Pizzeria & Espresso Bar, Newtown

Halloumi salad $16.00
grilled halloumi cheese snow peas
green beans crisp prosciutto
baby cos lettuce mustard dressing

There are twenty of us that pile into Wedgetail Pizza, a rabble of hungry punters who completely take over one side of this cosy tucked-away Newtown eatery.

We've booked, of course, and we heed the advice of the friendly staff: stick to one size pizza and the kitchen will love you.

We duplicate a number of pizzas and salads down the table, our orders arriving a little haphazardly but the pizzas are fresh, hot and crispy, straight from the woodfired oven.


Garlic pizza $8.50 large

The garlic pizza is reassuringly resplendent with caramelised splatterings that have turned a golden hue. Beetroot salad is light and refreshing, fat luscious crimson wedges adorned with an unusual mix of crisp pear, baby spinach leaves, salty kalamata olives and a pale creamy disc of tangy goat cheese.

I'm more enamoured by the haloumi salad [top], however, a textural playground made up of crisp blanched beans, velvety baby cos leaves, hearty chunks of tomato, crisp rashers of bacon and the always delightfully squeaky mouthfuls of pan-fried haloumi cheese.


Beetroot salad $18.50
roast beetroot pear goat cheese
fresh spinach olives cucumber
currant + pine nut dressing

Presented in a more traditional Italian style, the pizza toppings are light and modest- the hungrier lads aren't used to such restraint. Number 10, a bacon and tomato number, seems a little more like tomato and shallot, and Number 11, is more generous with the mushroom and olive than the slivers of promised leg ham.


Number 10 $24.00
tomato salsa mozzarella
fresh tomato crisp bacon coriander
black pepper fresh shallots


Number 11 $24.00 large
tomato salsa parmesan leg ham
fresh mushrooms fresh tomato
black olives fresh basil

On the other hand, I'm impressed by the generosity of prawns on the seafood pizzas. Number 16 is a colourful wheel of prawns and red capsicum spokes. My favourite is Number 15, a simpler affair of prawns and preserved lemon, the zinginess of lemon lifting the unadulterated sweetness of prawn.


Number 16 $24.00 large
basil pesto mozzarella parmesan
fresh prawns roasted red peppers
preserved lemon capers fresh basil

My favourite part of the restaurant is the artwork on the wall above our heads: two rows of various oven knobs, a retro collection of mint green, lemon yellow and baby blues amidst the usual colours of white, black and silver.

And your trivia tidbit for the evening: owner Peter Oxley was the bass player for The Sunnyboys, a hugely successful post-punk band from the early 1980s.

If music is the food of love, plate on.


Number 15 $24.00
tomato salsa mozzarella parmesan
fresh prawns fish preserved lemon
fresh parsley

Wedgetail Woodfire Pizzeria & Espresso Bar
Newtown Square
Corner of King St and Enmore Rd, Newtown, Sydney
(Next door to Newtown Community Centre)
Tel: +61 (02) 9516 1568

Dinner Tuesday to Sunday 6.00pm-10.00pm

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