It was a hit in Sydney during the pandemic, and now it’s arrived in Brisbane, with major plans for the Queensland capital.
With the number of food and beverage openings in Brisbane each month, you’d be forgiven for thinking there aren’t any gaps in the market left.
But of course, that’s not true.
Take New Farm. This beautiful, bucolic, cashed-up suburb is barely more than five minutes from the CBD, yet its food options have tended to be a bit patchy over the years.
You had a few local favourites and destination spots – your Gertie’s, Himalayan Cafes, New Farm Delis and Bar Altos of the world – but other operators came and went, and the scene always seemed to struggle to coalesce into a cohesive whole. That’s started to change.
New Farm Fish Market, Cartel Del Taco and Idle have all arrived on the main strip along Merthyr Road, and Andrew and Amelie Gunn are doing neat things at The Officers Mess.
Now comes Johnny Gio’s. This Sydney import opened on Tuesday in the same Little Lane complex that’s home to Idle and the recently arrived Luna Gelato. The gap it’s here to address? Hand-stretched, woodfired Italian pizza.
“There are some great pizza places in Brisbane, but not as many as I would’ve thought, given how strong the food scene is here,” says owner Jonathan Faro, who opened his first Johnny Gio’s in Bondi in 2019. “And New Farm really made sense. It has such a strong Italian heritage, yet we couldn’t really see many options for pizza in the area.”
Johnny Gio’s comes with a twist, in that it’s very much takeaway first.
“That was always the idea behind the brand: to create a trusted, premium, authentic takeaway pizza chain,” Faro says. “When you think about it, you’ve only got the really mainstream conveyor pizza chains. There are more authentic spots, but they tend to be single operators.”
So it’s fair to presume there will eventually be a bunch of these places throughout Brisbane. But first, New Farm.
Occupying the corner tenancy at Little Lane, the shop is little more than a striking red-tiled counter, a pizza oven, and a few tables out front. It’s just that the pizza oven is a huge woodfired Marana Forni number (the same as the one at Sasso Italiano at the Gabba), with a rotating plate that allows some of the Sydney shops to punch out 400 pizzas a night.
The pizza menu is a mix of classics, such as a margherita and an el diablo, and signature toppings, such as the Johnny Vodka (vodka sauce, loaded mozzarella, crispy pepperoni and parmesan), the Sonny Honey (spicy sopressa, red onion, ricotta, basil and hot honey), and the Burrata Queen (cherry tomatoes, garlic confit and basil, finished with a big dollop of burrata).
Away from the pizzas, there’s a veal ragu lasagne and a vodka mac and cheese, plus a clutch of sides, such as meatballs with ricotta, a rocket and parmesan salad, and a caprese salad.
For drinks there’s a selection of sodas, Peroni beer and pre-batched Aperol spritzes.
“We do really well in Coogee because people come down, grab a pizza and go sit on the beach,” Faro says. “And it’s the same in New Farm. Grab a pizza, go sit by the river in New Farm Park, have a spritz, have a beer. That’s what it’s all about.”
Open Mon-Fri 4pm-10pm, Sat-Sun 12pm-10pm
5/84 Merthyr Road, New Farm, (07) 2141 7725
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Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
