Pizza Farro III

608 High St, Thornbury; 03 9484 2040

Pizza Farro is rightly renowned for its spelt-based pizzas and on our most recent visit I'd had every intention of furthering my acquaintance with their selection. While browsing the pasta specials, however, the combination of pumpkin, spinach, pine nuts and ricotta became too tempting to forego. Nor would I forego spelt by choosing this option, as it's also the grain of choice for their pastas.

Pizza Farro isn't the cheapest eatery around - in most sections of their menu dishes start from around $18, travelling up to $23 or so for those with finer ingredients - but their produce is high quality, their cooking well-considered and their serving sizes ample. Their pizzas only come in one size, but it's a large one. The pasta alla zucca is similarly generous:The generosity extends to flavour. The cubed pumpkin is at a stage of mushiness that leaves it at the whim of your fork: pierce to pick up whole, or squash to dissolve. The ricotta, by comparison, holds its firmness; the pinenuts as always bring the crunch and the spinach some coarseness. The spelt pasta, too, brings a subtle distinction to the dish: matched with the pinenuts its hint of nuttiness lifts the flavour.

SG also managed to wrest his tastebuds from the salsicce pizza of our last visit. He's not one to stray too far from the pork, however, and selects the calzone with napoli, bocconcini, spicy pork sausage, mushrooms and, wait for it, truffle oil. The combination of field mushrooms and truffle gives a wonderful earthiness to balance the spicy sausage. Some mouthfuls of the folded pizza are a little heavy on dough, but that's more about filling distribution than any fault of the dish.

Service, as always, was helpful and friendly. We'll need to call on their help during future visits, I would think, as the menu keeps getting harder to choose from.