Appizza Resurrects an Iconic Sydney Corner With King-Sized New Haven-Inspired Slices

“Crazy. Good. Pretty busy. Fun.” That’s how Stefano De Caro describes Appizza, the slice shop he just opened together with the AP Bakery team in Darlinghurst. Just a week after opening, “pretty busy” is an understatement.

Four days a week, people are sitting on stools crowded around bright-red milk crate-style tables. King-sized slices of pizza – each sauced up with a secret-recipe passata of local and Sardinian tomatoes – sit on white paper plates, covering every table. So far, those pies are all selling out hours before closing time.

“It’s crazy, we didn’t expect this, to be honest,” De Caro says. “We had a lot of dough – over 120 [pizzas] for sure. It was a lot. We added a good amount this week, we’re gonna have way more.”

Of course, fanfare is expected when AP Bakery does something new – and it’s only helped here with De Caro’s pizza expertise (he’s also behind Cicerone and Tonino’s International) and the location: the buzzy, yellow-washed Sydney corner that was most recently the ever-adored Cafe Freda’s. “Walking past, seeing it empty, with no one, it didn’t make sense.”

What does make sense is grabbing a slice or two, which mash up New Haven and New York pies. “It’s half-style, I’d say – New Haven toppings on a New York slice,” De Caro says. “The main thing is to make pizza with as much local ingredients as possible. Obviously, we didn’t want to do another pizzeria [with] blistered pizzas, because in Sydney there is so many. We just wanted to do something different.”

Each morning, dough is made using house-milled flours at AP’s warehouse bakery in Marrickville. Then, it’s carted to Taylor Square, shaped and topped with passata and pre-baked. It hits a Swedish Pizza Master electric deck oven during service, where the thin, chewy slices get their signature crispiness.

The 22-inch rounds are only available by the slice. “It’s huge,” says De Caro. “I saw some people online say, ‘Oh, 10 bucks for the slice?!’ But literally, one slice, it’s the same weight of dough as half a pizza.”

The format means no one’s squabbling over how much to order or which flavour is best. There’s a classic tomato or pepperoni slice, cheese or “salad”. That last one takes the original and tops it with leaves slick with a citrusy, liquorice-scented dressing, the tang zinging through each mouthful.

AP co-owner and Ester chef Mat Lindsay is on sauce duty, making four serves primed to jazz up any leftover crusts. There are red and green AP sauces, a ranch first seen at Ester and a ’nduja, honey and tomato mix from Poly.

The site is destined to one day be developed, but the team is chill about the prospect. “We don’t know how long we’re gonna be in this location, but we don’t care. The space was too cool to keep closed during summer. Like, let’s run a slice shop and see what happens – let’s just open and see what’s up.”

If week one is anything to go by, Sydney’s most heaving corner is back.

Appizza
191–195 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst

Hours:
Thu 4pm–10pm
Fri & Sat midday–midnight
Sun midday–8pm

@appizza.syd