Restaurant and food reviews from Perth, Australia

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Stones Pizza, North Perth

Stones Pizza North Perth review, photos and blog
I have to say that the number of times I hear "Perth's best pizza" or some other variation confuses me as to whether there really is a "best", different people with different tastes have just called it the "best", or perhaps it's just sales puff.  That aside, I guess there's no harm in trying different pizza places to work out your own "best pizza" place.

Stones Pizza in North Perth was the bronze medallist for the America's Plate in New York back in 2008.  It has also been a finalist of the Dairy Farmers Best of the Best Pizza Challenge between 2006 to 2009.  So with those sorts of credentials, you would be expecting some good pizza.

The menu includes a range of meat and vegetarian pizzas along with a gluten free option at an additional cost, and pizza sides such as garlic bread, a couple of salads, and Stones Wings which are chicken wings with a choice of hot sauce, barbeque, honey chilli garlic, or sesame maple soy.  The pizzas tend to range from about $10-25.  To finish, they offer a cheesecake or a cinnamon fingers pizza which contains maple syrup.

Over the many pizzas I have had from stones, I have found the quality to be good but it can vary.  One thing that sets Stones apart is that their pizzas are made with fresh ingredients (eg fresh cut pineapple as opposed to tinned pineapple, and real honey roast ham sliced up as opposed to ham that comes in a pre-cut caterers pack).  This already puts Stones Pizza above many of the rest of the pizza places and you can taste the freshness just to support that.

However, as a minor negative to the numerous Stones pizzas I have had, I found on the odd occasion that the topping proportions can be wrong or sparse leading to bland pizzas or on one busy occasion the pizza wasn't cooked right as the pizza dough was bready.  Though aside from that, the pizza quality is generally pretty good.

Similarly, service wise things can be varied.  Generally the service is fine for a pizza joint but I do recall one occasion of being told there would be a 15 minute wait on a pizza, only to emerge with a pizza after 45 minutes and no apology or acknowledgement that they got their "15 minutes" very wrong.

Garlic and cheese bread - $6

Thick slices of bread were coated with garlic butter and a thin layer of cheese, and grilled to get the cheese lightly brown.  It didn't have a huge garlic taste (though I'm sure my breath smelt otherwise), but the garlic and cheese bread had enough topping to leave you with a tasty entree.

Stones chicken wings with BBQ sauce - $14

This consisted of a dozen pieces of chicken wings that were thickly coated with BBQ sauce.  The chicken wings were tender and moist, and the addition of the BBQ sauce (which a good mix of sweet and savoury) made this a tasty treat.

Though chicken wings aren't something I normally associate with a pizza place, the juicy and well-sauced chicken wings were good though nothing out of the ordinary.

Coat of arms - $24.50

The pizza that Stones Pizza singles out as having won awards, the "coat of arms" pizza is named the coat of arms by its use of a Margaret River smokey emu and kangaroo chorizo (both of which are featured on our coat of arms if you didn't already know).  The nice chorizo was salty and meaty, dry but not too tough, and a great addition to pizza but personally I can't say that without being told I would be able to tell it was emu and kangaroo.


However, it isn't just that emu and kangaroo that makes this pizza.  On top of the pizza base is a thin layer of rosemary roasted potato that adds a lot of herbed and roast potato flavour that I personally think gave the pizza a great core base packed with a very nice roast potato flavour.  Adding to that were sundried tomatoes, fetta, spring onion, and garlic butter each adding even more complementary flavours to this pizza.


I really enjoyed this pizza, it's probably my favourite one from Stones Pizza (at least so far).

I should also note that the pizza bases are thin and not oily.  Personally, I prefer the thinner pizza base - it has a slight crusty/crunchiness to it and lets you eat more pizza without feeling heavy or worse still - greasy.  However, I personally think half a pizza is just about right for me for a decent but not overfilling meal - means leftovers for the next day!

Brie chicken - $22.50

This pizza is another favourite.

Pieces of free range roast chicken are added with brie and pesto to make a great combination that is the core of this pizza.  Fresh tomato is also added to the pizza and the pizza is finally drizzled with quince balsamic.

I have to say I think the combinaton of ingredients is unsurprisingly great on this pizza.  Delicious roast chicken with melted brie is almost always sure to be a winner and the pesto adds a great herb flavour to the pizza.  The quince balsamic also adds a sweetness to the pizza making an all round great chicken pizza.

Devine lamb - $22.50

Having a Greek feel to this pizza, the Devine Lamb pizza contains pieces of marinated lamb, tomato, olives, red onion and haloumi.  Of course, the pizza is finally drizzled with Tzatziki sauce.


A good combination of toppings (though the Greek style lamb pizza concept is not unique to Stones) the Devine Lamb definitely had a meaty Greek taste to it. My main issue with this pizza was the only time I ordered it, the toppings (largely the lamb) were too sparse for my liking resulting in lots of relatively bland mouthfuls.

The Carnivore - $22

For the chronic meat-eater, this pizza makes the top of the list.

Pepperoni, bacon, braised beef, free range chicken and honey ham are sure to satisfy most pizza loving meat lovers' tastebuds.  Add a bit of roasted red onion and a good amount of stretchy pepperoni cheese and you get one of the best meat pizzas out there that doesn't leave you with the same level of greasiness as some cheaper ones out there.

You can really taste each of the elements of quality ingredients that make up this pizza and the freshness and relative leanness of the meat really makes this meat pizza a good choice.

Sir Guinness - $22

With a name like Sir Guinness, one would expect Guinness beer to be involved in this pizza - and it is.  Guinness jus is one of the ingredients that make this pizza distinct, but Guinness alone can't be enough to make a pizza could it?  Braised beef, caramelised shallots and mushroom also top this pizza and all match the Guinness like a Guinness pie.

The taste of the pizza is that of a relatively meaty beef pizza, with shredded beef lined quite liberally along the pizza.  The Guinness jus adds a Guinness flavour that comes out bitter compared to the flavour of any other pizza.

I'm sure many people will love this pizza for the Guinness, but based on pure taste it didn't do a lot for me.

We liked:  The thin base, the use and taste of fresh and quality ingredients (as opposed to pre-packed catering packs), some pizzas with great combinations that help set Stones Pizza apart - all of these reasons help to make it one of our favourite pizza places in Perth.

We didn't like:  There are the odd occasions where the quality drops, toppings can be on the scarce side or slow service can leave you (or maybe just me) annoyed.

Other things to note:  The North Perth branch has a couple of al fresco tables but most people take-away; gluten free bases available at an additional cost; credit cards incur a surcharge.

Stones Pizza
400 Fitzgerald Street
NORTH PERTH WA 6006
(08) 9228 1877
http://stonespizza.com

Trading Hours
Saturday to Thursday: 5pm to 10pm
Friday: 11:30am to 11pm

Stones Pizza on Urbanspoon

9 comments:

port melbourne pizza said...

Pizza is specialty of this restaurant .I like menu it covers. It has both vegetarian and non-vegetarian range of pizza available in different range. A customer has choice to select pizza according to their availability of money.
port melbourne pizza

Anonymous said...

i love pizza so much...id love to try one of these....



australia
bidding

coffee machines perth said...

yes, pizza, chicken are famous of Perth but have you tasted the coffee of Perth??
if not then try it.., really, it's awesome and feels good in morning.

Mans said...

Great review!

How many people did you share the food with??!! I hope it wasnt just between two! ;p But nothing wrong though because I always tend to over induldge, myself!

Used to get Stones pizzas all the time back when I was still within their 'delivery area'. My favourite used to be their lamb pizza. I have tried their Brie chicken pizza and its good too!
(I prefer Stones than Little Caesar's pizza. I remembered trying their lamb pizza and the flavours were not right and it got a bit too much after the first slice...)And also heaps better than the local pizza joints.


Also loved their buffalo wings. Marinade was delicious with just the right balance of flavours!

I should drive there this week and get a few pizzas.

Any other good pizza places we should try? :)
Funtastico used to be my favourite. Crust was just right and toppings always fresh but have notice their quality going downhill a bit.

Adrian said...

Hey Mans

Those pizzas are over a few different meals - I tend to only eat half a pizza by myself these days in any one sitting.

I would have liked the lamb pizza more if they had more topping on the time I tried it. As it was, it seemed a bit flavourless as most bites seemed like sauce on base with maybe a bit of veg. But that is possibly one of those quality control failures that occur.

Not really sure what other pizzas are worth trying - I haven't tried Crust yet, not sure when I will given I would usually just go to Stones and if the quality is going downhill that's not a good sign. It's good that Stones uses fresh (as opposed to pre-made catering pack) ingredients.

Marcos pizza is meant to have won some awards or something - I might give that a try, but I think they serve more traditional pizza topping combinations.

I haven't been to Funtastico for years - I remember having a pizza that was salty but that's about it.

I went to Blackbird recently on your advice. Will blog soon :)

Mans said...

Ooooh, Blackbird. Can't wait for your review!
I always have a fantastic time there. Food and service, always amazing. But I must say that they do like to go a bit crazy with the salt. Last two times, I told them to go easy on the salt and it came out perfect! :)

Hey, happy Christmas Adrian! Hope you'll have a wonderful Christmas and New Year, celebrating with lots of wonderful food. :)

Adrian said...

Yeah I should post it this week.

For the dishes we had, I could definitely taste the "added" salt but it didn't seem to bother me too much.

Thanks, and you too! Time to overindulge in festivities... I have already started.

VeacinCove said...

In North Perth there are fresh and yummy variety of Pizza.Port Melbourne Restaurants

Best Pizza in Melbourne said...

You have a great variety of meat and vegetarian pizza that is a great thing to see. However i heard much about the Best Pizza in Melbourne.