Portone Wood Fired Pizza

(Note: review is for takeaway pizza, not for actually dining in the restaurant).
Some nights all you want to do is sit on the couch together (or alone!), marathon a TV show and eat pizza. My partner and I have been looking for decent delivery pizza since we moved here, and until last night our TV show marathons were accompanied by sub-​par pizza and disappointment. All I had to do was call, place the order and give the nice man our address… and like magic he showed up 30 minutes later with pizza! Pure wizardry. Personally, I prefer New York style pizza, but I was pretty pleased with the Italian pizza that showed up on my doorstep.
I think that the delivery charge was $ 3, which is pretty damn reasonable, and they came within the time frame we were given on the phone. We ordered large pizzas and they were actually fairly large with a decent amount of topping. The base was nice and thin, crispy, with the perfect amount of sauce. You can always judge a pizza place on their margarita pizza, and let me tell you — it was a winner. I’m sure that it would have been even better if we had eaten it at the restaurant, as it was starting to get a tiny bit cold by the time we got it up the stairs and dished it out onto plates etc… that’s our fault for being disorganised, though, not theirs.
I’m happy to have finally found a decent pizza place that delivers to St Kilda! We’ll definitely be ordering from here again.
ps. I’m not sure if you can order online. We ordered over the phone and paid cash when they dropped it off.

Pizzas were very tasty, but service was slow & we had to ask for our drinks several times. I’d stick to takeaway.

If I were basing this review on the quality of the pizza alone, it would be getting 5 stars. This is thin Neapolitan style pizza — the base perfectly made, thin, and with a slight lick of flame from the wood fired oven. The toppings? Great. The Zucca (pumpkin, ricotta, caramelised leeks and fresh oregano) got the thumbs up all round, while the Salumi (tomato, fior de latte, salumi, roasted capsicum, onion jam) came a close second in being named favourite for the night.
Value wise, it’s excellent. A group of 8 of us tried to defeat 5 large pizzas after a «comfit» (urgh, can’t stand a menu typo!) garlic focaccia and two salads (spinach, pea, mint with lemon dressing) and sadly had to leave a few slices as we were just too full. A large pizza is $ 18 and for this quality I think it an absolute bargain.
Next time I’ll be grabbing a take away as this really isn’t a place to «dine» as the service just isn’t up to scratch. Being told that the pizzas only took 2 minutes by one staff member and then being told by another that there would be a wait was confusing. We ended up waiting over 45 minutes for some pizzas and while we were more than happy to drink wine and chat, it just didn’t seem like they had it together. One pizza was delivered with a hole in the middle (a casualty of the oven) and we were told another would be sent to replace it. It never arrived and the half mangled one was still on the bill at the end. Luckily we’re easy going people but I can see that this would really irk some customers.
Needing to ask a few times for water, water glasses, napkins and plates and then being asked how many we’d like (umm, there’s 8 of us?) made the lack of experience here very obvious. It’s sad, because I like this place. I love their food, I like the relaxed vibe and the un-​fussiness of eating a few good pizzas on big tables in what is essentially a shopping arcade. I really want to adopt this place, help them smooth out the kinks and see them succeed at being a kick-​arse local pizza spot.

We came here on a Wednesday night at close to 8pm for dinner. There was no one there when we arrived, but soon after a couple of other parties arrived. There was one person serving and the owner/​pizza chef inside cooking. The gentlemen serving us was very pleasant, helping us choose from one of the many tasty pizzas. We were trying to decide between the Zucca and the Margharita, and opted for the latter along with a spinach and peas salad. I also requested anchovies on half the pizza. The pizza was delicious and the crust was thin and crispy. The salad was lightly dressed, fresh, with nice taste of mint and a little parsley. We got the large pizza and it was perfect for two people — my husband probably could have used an extra slice. So I would say for the large, two average eaters might have an extra slice to take home, while folks who like to eat a little more might feel a little peckish sharing a large. The restaurant is down an alley near Coles, but in the evening the gateway to the front entrance is closed so you have to go through the Coles car park — Coles is open late so easy to just walk through the store to get there. The outdoor seating is vey cute and eclectic with comfortable tables, chairs, couches. It’s a nice place for a group to have dinner outside, and it’s sheltered so it was not cold all. I highly recommend this place for the friendly staff and delicious pizza. Though we didn’t get to talk to the owner, we waived good bye to him and he waved back with a smile.
They’ve only been open 6 months, I think they took over from another pizza place that was called Greenlight… something something.
Give them a try, they only open for dinner.