Doc Pizza and Mozzarella bar, Carlton by Big Fil

Great pizza, there's nothing like it. Quick, casual, tasty and filling, along with Ferrari and Sophie Loren it's one of Italy's greatest exports.

However, unfortunately most pizza sold around Melbourne is nothing like great pizza. Heavy, oily, overly cheesed and a hodgepodge of flavours caused by using far too many cheap ingredients, I suppose it's made for its audience but that's not me. DOC on the other hand is much more my style: thin crisp bases, with a balanced use of high quality ingredients and served with a bit of style.

There is a pleasant minimalism about DOC, with its white walls and brown chairs showing an appreciation that being stylish doesn't mean gaudy. Service comes with a touch of Italian flair, nothing over the top or showy but through the staff accents and the way they carry themselves. Even the slightly animated discussions in Italian (I think about who was serving at which tables) had that authentic feel.


The pizza menu is extensive enough to provide a fair degree of choice with around a dozen or so options. Given that it was a Sunday lunch to be followed by ice cream we decided to share three pizzas between the four of us - the Tiger Prawns, Porcini and Speck. We were quite early for lunch and with only a handful of other tables in use we were soon tucking in to some of the best pizza around.

Most popular on the day but not my personal favourite was the prawn pizza. With decent sized fresh prawns, endive and a touch of chilli on a thin crispy base, I did have a couple of minor issues. Firstly, while I wouldn't have wanted it to be overloaded with prawns I did feel that it could have used just a couple more. Also, one of my biggest hates with bad pizza is that it can be overly sloppy, to the extent that you end up at risk of wearing it as much as eating it. I did think that was the case a bit here and unfortunately that did happen to one of us, as she ended up with a prawn and small dob of tomato and cheese on her lap after it slid off the edge of a slice.


My own personal favourite pizza was the porcini. Without being overly complicated by too many competing flavours a simple one topping flavoured dish like this allows the quality of the underlying ingredients to shine though. Also, if they aren't good there is nowhere to hide. Porcini mushrooms to me have a slightly meaty flavour which goes well with the slight saltiness added by the pizza base. The end result is nothing complicated, just a good pizza.


The Speck pizza came with (from memory) prosciutto and wild mushrooms. A fancy version of a ham and mushroom pizza, with a generous but not unbalanced amount of thinly sliced prosciutto it completed a trio of very good pizzas.


Overall
Far from the usual suburban pizza joint or pizza hut, the bases are thin, crisp and slightly chewy, the ingredients top notch and the atmosphere conducive to good food and conversation. If you judge your pizza by the number of toppings and cheese you can get for your home delivery or takeaway buck then DOC probably won't appeal. If you are willing to pay a bit more for a more traditional style pizza with quality toppings then DOC is a very good option.

Verdict
Food - 8
Service - 7
Ambience - 8
Price - 7

Address
295 Drummond Street
Carlton VIC 3053
Tel: (03) 9347 2998