All fired up down south

132 Marine Terrace, Scottburgh Daily noon to 8.30pm

039 978 3674

THE Glass Guy and I took a trip down to Scottburgh this week … to eat pizza.

This was after I’d spotted that Enzo Pizzeria Trattoria is the first KwaZulu-Natal restaurant to make it into the Top 10 of the nationwide Porcupine Ridge Pizzeria Challenge, coming in at No 5.

Owner Enzo Tilli has been making pizzas since he was 18, when he decided to follow his passion for creating authentic Italian food. With the help of his mother, he opened his first Enzo Pizzeria in 1990 in Joburg’s West Rand followed by a second branch at Gold Reef City.

Seven years later he moved down the South Coast where he has been popular ever since. A second restaurant has been opened in Umkomaas.

Chatting to locals as we browse the town’s charity shops looking for interesting items, everyone knows Enzo, and has their favourite pizza.

The consensus is “you’ll have a great lunch” or “wish I could join you”.

“Like all good pizzas, ours are made with the finest ingredients and cooked to perfection in a wood-burning clay oven,” says Tilli.

“We believe that whoever is making the pizza should have lots of love for what they are creating and that their passion is a big part of what makes them so good.”

For a pre-season Monday lunch, the restaurant has a pleasant buzz.

Two guys knock back a jug of sangria (I think that should be jugs of sangria) while sharing a tasting board loaded with meats and cheeses.

There’s a couple of families waiting for pizzas, a couple of businesswomen taking time out from the office, friends meeting.

It’s a large restaurant, basically an open terrace overlooking the sea with the pizza oven doing overtime at the back. When packed, I think this could be a very lively spot.

We soon have Stella draughts in our hands as we take in the ocean, and peruse the menu. We ask our waiter what’s his favourite pizza.

He likes the Siciliana with anchovies and capers. It’s one of my favourites too. The Greco is popular with avo, feta and bacon, as is the quattro stagione with ham, mushrooms, salami and olives.

But there’s an array of options including the Enzo (salami, onions, mushrooms and peppers), the meat heavy Scottburgh (Bolognaise, bacon, pepperoni, salami and ham) and the Natalia (ham and banana).

Salmon features with tomato and rocket, as does steak with onions and peppers. There’s chicken, and deboned ribs and Mexican chilli variants.

There’s eight vegetarian options including the Umkomaas with cherry tomatoes, jalapenos, peppadews, rocket and pesto.

That sounds delicious.

We first had a starter. There’s chicken livers, snails in garlic or Gorgonzola, mussels and springbok carpaccio. We decided to share a special of crispy squid heads (R65). Actually that specials board was exceptionally good value. A beer and eisbein for R120, a beer and ribs for R135. The calamari was an enormous plate and enough for a meal for one. It was beautifully crisp and came with a garlic butter that had a proper kick of garlic. Wow. And the little bowl of chips was decent too.

Pizzas are also available in three different sizes, standard, large and extra large. We saw this massive pizza box coming out of the kitchen for takeaway: enormous.

I opted for the large lumache (R118), simply because I had never had snails on a pizza before. It came with mushrooms and Gorgonzola. The base was lovely and crisp, and I can certainly see what the fuss was all about. The snails were interesting but it was the Gorgonzola that made it.

The Glass Guy tucked in here as well. He went for a large rib pizza with onions, peppers and barbecue basting (R105). It was most enjoyable, although ultimately we both prefer the classic salami or pepperoni if we’re having meat on a pizza. One of the house cats found his way onto the Glass Guy's lap as he fed him little bits of rib. He was a fussy character not taking to the cheesy bits. What a life.

Desserts here are limited. Malva pudding, ice-cream and chocolate sauce and chocolate volcano. The Glass Guy tucked into a Sangria slush puppy (R55).

If it wasn’t for the trip home, I would have joined him… and it might have turned into slush puppies.

Delicious. I said to the waiter that this was pure hooligan juice.

“It is,” he says. “My friends call it baby making juice.”

I enjoyed the dessert of the day – a lemon cheesecake (R42).

And next time we’ll definitely stay over.

Food: 4

Service: 4

Ambience: 3

The Bill: R561, including beers and sangrias.