Arriva

http://arrivarestaurant.com.au/

Sunday evening we went to see Stephen K Amos at the Powerhouse at New Farm as part of the Brisbane Comedy Festival. We’ve been going to the Comedy festival since it started, its in its third year now and personally I think its awesome! Since we knew we were going to be in the area we booked a dinner at Arriva after the show. We’ve been to Arriva a few times before but not for a couple of years so I was keen to see if it was still as awesome as previous occasions. I was also mildly hungover (shhhh don’t tell anyone), so was really in the mood for eating pizza... in fact I was keen to eat a whole one to myself. 

Arriva has won about a zillion awards for their pizza, in fact they have them proudly displayed on the wall in case you want to see for yourself. I tried to convince L to order a pasta so we could try that as well, but no, he wanted pizza too. 

We ordered a caprese salad to share for $12.50, then I ordered the Perfetta pizza which was tomato based with prosciutto, mozzarella, basil and cracked pepper ($19.00) and L ordered the Puttanesca pizza ($19.50), white base with garlic, chilli, olive oil, tomato, anchovies, 3 types of olives and buffalo mozzarella. Now I have a feeling these were slightly more expensive, like around the $20-$21 mark, but I am getting the prices from their website......

We were told the pizzas were a 30 minute wait, so asked for our caprese salad to come out first instead of with the pizzas as we were starving. The salad had the usual tomato slices with mozzarella slices but also had a giant pile of rocket and radicchio in the centre drizzled with olive oil. The tomato was beautiful, these salads should ONLY be made with super red ripe tomatoes. We woofed the salad down in about 2 minutes flat. They did use dried basil instead of fresh, that was the only thing I didn’t like.

Our pizzas actually arrived just as we were finishing our salad, which was excellent timing. I felt the sauce on my pizza was just a bit too runny, as I would pick up a slice and all the topping would fall off. It was soggy in the centre. I also felt it was missing a key ingredient... GARLIC! I love garlic so much and after tasting L’s pizza which was full of garlic, I was salivating for it. 

L really loved his pizza, in fact, saying it was one of the best pizzas he had ever had, but personally I felt the addition of olive oil was rather unnecessary as the cheese was oily in itself. Also the olives all had their pits inside still, making it rather difficult to eat. The edges of the crust were somewhat blackened and burnt.

I sound a bit whiney about it, maybe I was feeling grumpy due to being a bit under the weather, but I was expecting more from our pizzas. Don’t get me wrong though, they were still excellent. 

To finish we ordered dessert... Yes I know I am a pig... Dessert after eating a whole pizza to myself?

 I had the vanilla bean pannacotta with forest fruits ($10.50) which was lovely. L tried to order tiramisu, however they had run out, so ordered a limoncello affogato instead ($11.50). It turned out to be a scoop of lemon gelato topped with a shot of limoncello, which I thought was a great idea. 

Arriva is still going strong after being open for many years and clearly the locals love it, as it is always packed out. If I lived nearby I would probably get takeaway pizza every night. It is definitely up there for the best pizza in Brisbane, but personally I still can’t go past Schonell pizza cafe or Beccofino. 

Love,

C