Pizza puzzle, review.

I have a friend who is tall, has sideburns and a cool blues man attitude, his birthday dinner was at Russells Pizza Bar on Saturday evening at Willunga. I really like the atmosphere of this rough and tumble venue, so I was keen to enjoy the evening with good friends. We were lucky enough to have some friends picking us up and driving us home, esky, jacket, keys, slap slap yep yep. Lets go... Our South Australian Department of Transport is still showing their complete lack of foresight in building an expressway that only goes one way at any one time. We are not as late as we thought, A South Rd usually clogged with all those kids in their Commadoors must be binge drinking in other areas? If you did not know where Russells' was and someone said its on the main street in Willunga you could end up knocking on a few front doors. You would eventually find the dimly lit cottage and shed three doors up from the Pub which comes in very handy especially in our case if you start the journey with 3 bottles of red and end it with none and not a drop down the billy goat! Two bottles remained foolishly on our kitchen table as all 5 of us walked straight past them, and the other bottle found the incline of our parking spot to much and into the gutter with a smash - 98' Coonawarra meets MacLaren Vale ditch water.... The pub has a small selection of reasonably priced quality booze over the bar, we cradled our purchase right back to the table at Russells. The starters had begun which are a hands on arrangement of greens, roast peppers, olives as well as bread, olive oil and some fresh dukkah.
There was rumour of keftedes (spiced meatballs) and they were completely snaffled up by the gaggle of girlfriends, who's opportunistic positions around the table meant optimum returns on effort. I snooped around the place and checked out the garden with aragula, fennel and other lettuce just about going to seed, but kept freshly producing by consistent picking. Pizza's had arrived and we were now in proper position to pick up possessions. Great crust, beautiful cheese - but far too much onion... This could be one of the risks in employing enthusiastic youths, standards can rapidly slip without a close discerning eye over those dishes which make Russells' what it is. Onion at high temp goes transluscent, undetectable by the sixteen year old eye. And the Mediterranean pizza is a wonderful concept, but when dukkah burns it goes extremely bitter and another sign that the chefs are under the pump! I would not have thought that you would cook dukkah, as it is all ready roasted to release the fragrant spice. We are all really enjoying ourselves in the back shed so small pizza puzzles slip to the side, if we were not in such and convivial environment and friends were not so jovial would the pizza stand up? NO.
Sapore Ristorante and Cafe Bar is on Payneham Rd. at Felixstow and it has one of the largest brick ovens I have seen used for cooking since eating at Mama Lisa's at Pt Elliot which sadly did not cook pizza in theirs. Sapore are proud to inform me that the oven does not stop unless on public holidays, it looks inspiring when loaded with pizzas of every traditional variety. I tried a Schiacatta Pomodora, pizza based with olive tepenade ontop is a fresh topping and it was so good I took the rest home and had it the day after - a good sign in my opinion. I was a little circumspect of the price of these dishes as a Cafe traditionally treads the fine line of quality and quantity, My darling had a Risotto Gamberoni with prawn, saffron, zuchinni, chilli and herbs fresh but not quite the aroma of Saffron that wows and stirs the soul. I chose better with a Linguine Tutto Mare (local seafood with fresh toms, chilli and herbs) it was clean and zingy enough to keep me interested and more fresh shellfish than I could want for. Well worth the money, when you think this place could feed you twice the amount of food Russell could with more overhead costs. Why is it that these venues survive? Sapore never shut? Russell is always shut? It is a puzzle.
Tell me if you think Russell's is the greatest thing since "Ancient Rome" or that it is just the atmosphere that keeps the fire warm? And if Maggie Beer would like to write a forward to my cook book I would let her...

Giles