There’s nothing quite like a woodfired pizza, and there’s no woodfired pizza quite like Fire & Slice in Sumner.
Since its launch in August 2018, Fire & Slice has become a Sumner pizza legend. It’s a buzzing joint, and on any given evening you’ll find takeaway customers hanging out in the front watching pizzas fly in and out of the oven, while diners enjoy a beer over their pizza at the tables down back.
Fire & Slice isn’t faffing round with pasta or desserts. This restaurant knows what it does best and sticks to its guns: pizza, chips, beer and wine. And when it comes to the pizza, there’s nothing else quite like it in Christchurch.
The dough is hand-made with fresh yeast – not the instant stuff you get from the supermarket. It takes two days to rise, giving it its signature flavour and light texture – it digests easy, and never feels like eating a heavy fast food pizza.
READ MORE: The Land Doughver: Fire & Slice hits the road with gourmet pizza
Almost all the ingredients, from the wheat to the meat and the buffalo mozzarella, come from Canterbury. A few bits and pieces come from around New Zealand. Italy makes a contribution to the restaurant, too: the oven, the pizza tools, and the tomatoes come from the home of pizza. Fire & Slice founder Pal Singh says he experimented with making sauce from New Zealand tomatoes, but the Italian ones were dryer and better for his hand-made passata.
Pal and his team spend hours in the restaurant every day, prepping everything by hand, making dough and sauce, slicing veggies, cooking meat, and getting the oven ready to hit its 400 °C mark.
Fire & Slice’s signature pizza is the Bianca di Bufala – the restaurant’s margherita made with Wairiri Buffalo mozzarella. “It’s hard to find buffalo mozzarella in New Zealand because there’s not many buffalo around,” Pal says. “We were lucky that Wairiri agreed to supply us from day one.”
He’s also got a secret signature – the Pistachiosa. The ingredients for this nutty pizza are so secret they’re not listed on the website or menu. Ask after it next time you’re in the store if you want a real treat.
A massive Land Rover Series II is mounted over the oven, greeting people as they walk through the door. Pal says he wanted it as a draw card for the restaurant, and it really seems to work. In the early days, Pal bought the wrecked Landy off TradeMe, had the front cut off and fitted over the oven, and donated the parts to home mechanics working on projects. The tray is still out back, and has been converted into a fresh herb garden.
But the ultimate draw card for Fire & Slice? It’s undoubtedly the unique pizza. Pal says the secret to the perfectly-cooked crunchy pizza is plenty of fire. “If you can’t see flames, you’re making toast.”
7 steps to perfect pizza
Watching the Fire & Slice team make pizzas is an entertainment all in itself.
1. Grab a ball of dough.
2. Toss some semolina on the bench so it doesn’t stick.
3. Get that oven flaming. They’re not making toast!
4. Hand-stretch the dough – never take the shortcut of using a roller.
5. Spread on some hand-made Italian-style passata sauce as a base.
6. Carefully spread the cheese and other ingredients.
7. 90-120 seconds in the oven, rotating and lifting the pizza for even cooking.