First Look: Get “No-Flop” New York Slices by a Bourke Street Bakery Boss in Darlinghurst

When you wield a slice from Paulie’s Pizza, a new shop in Darlinghurst by Bourke Street Bakery co-founder Paul Allam, it will not flop like its Neapolitan cousins. You can bend the thing neatly in half before cramming the cheesy, golden tip into your gob. The charred crusts are dense enough to dunk like breadsticks into pots of salsa verde or chilli and munch till your hair curls.

With respect to the infinite variations by shop and borough – yes, this is pizza like you’d find in the Big Apple. Who knew Allam had it in him? Turns out it’s been there since he was a kid.

“Pizza was the first thing I learnt to make before cakes and bread,” he says of his after-school ritual. “I would come home after school as a 12-, 13-year-old and make my own pizza dough – yeast, flour and water, a little bit of oil. My dad was the cook in my family, so he told me how to do that.”

Fast forward to 2017, when Allam and his family moved to New York to set up Bourke Street Bakery, “it was just constantly pizza all over the city for a good year and half,” he says. “There was always a slice shop within striking distance.”

Allam struck the city’s famous L’industrie and Upside numerous times. He cites those as favourites for their use of sourdough levain to create signature crispy slices. Allam takes the same approach at Paulie’s, using a sourdough starter he’s had for 22 years and a method that took around six months of perfecting to attain no-flop nirvana.

That old sourdough friend serves as the base of a 24-hour fermented dough with 62 per cent hydration. It’s divided into balls and proved individually for consistency, then hand-stretched into 18-inch rounds for slices (or 13-inch for delivery) and fired in an electric Moretti Forni deck.

When Broadsheet visited, we tried the spicy vodka topped with spears of green onion, a mushroom option sporting glops of stracciatella, and a sausage and pepper special. We also tried the Sicilian grandma slice, made with a wetter dough and twice baked – first naked, then a second fire with toppings – for a supreme crunch.

Paulie’s also offers a trio of salads you can easily pile onto your slice and expect it to hold strong. Plus ready-made frozen meals like lasagne, eggplant parmigiana and meatballs in red sauce to take home. The shop will be licensed to serve beer and wine in the coming weeks.

New Yorkian slice culture is finally sticking in Sydney, as MMC, Oltra and (the currently closed for building works) Appizza up the road adopt the format. Paulie’s gets a little closer to the city that never sleeps with 1am trade Thursday to Saturday. And with huge slices for less than $10 and interest rates soaring, Paulie’s is sure to hit the spot like it does in New York. 

“New York isn’t a particularly egalitarian city,” says Allam, “But the subway and pizza shops get everyone.”

Paulie’s Pizza
Shop 5/90 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst

Hours:
Mon to Wed 7am–10pm
Thu & Fri 7am–1am
Sat midday–1am

pauliespizza.com.au
@pauliespizzapezzo