It’s common knowledge that Maestro Sourdough Pizza – Chiara Mezzasoma and Andrea Brunelli’s beloved neighbourhood restaurant in North Beach – is one of Perth’s most trusted sources for elegant, fleet-footed Neapolitan-style pizza. Following the announcement of 50 Top Pizza’s 2025 Asia-Pacific rankings at Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Tokyo on Monday afternoon (WA time), Maestro’s status as a pizza powerhouse has been confirmed. Again.
Launched in 2017, 50 Top Pizza is a dining guide that claims to employ anonymous inspectors to visit and rank pizza restaurants globally. In addition to a master list of 50 restaurants, the guide also publishes supplementary regional lists highlighting venues in Latin America, Europe, North America, Italy.
Maestro’s appearance in the 2025 Asia-Pacific list is the fourth time that Mezzasoma and Brunelli’s restaurant has enjoyed 50 Top Pizza recognition. (The restaurant also appearing in the 2024, 2023 and 2021 rankings). Placing at number 38 in this year’s countdown, however, is its highest ranking.
“We’re very proud to be on the list,” says Brunelli, who travelled with his wife to Tokyo to attend the awards ceremony.
“It’s a great achievement to be considered one of the 50 best pizza chefs in the Asia-Pacific region.
“It’s a nice reward for all the work we’ve put we put into managing the restaurant, searching for the best products and doing all those dough tests and trials.”
While Maestro is WA’s only pizzeria to make the 50 Top Pizza cut, Australia is well represented with 10 restaurants – the most of any nation in the region – being recognised by the guide. Our top-ranked pizzeria is Melbourne’s Shop 225 which placed at number five.
While Naples-style pizza is Maestro’s calling card and well worth travelling up the freeway for, the introduction of a new five-pizza tasting menu (four savoury pizzas plus a dessert pizza) in November is a chance for Umbria-born chef Brunelli to show off his range beyond puffy, blistered pies of unusual lightness. Three of the pizzas – the “Quattro Stagioni” that features four different toppings on one base, cut into quarters; a “doppia cottura” (“double cooked”) pizza that is fried and then baked in the pizzeria’s Moretti Forni oven till impossibly light and crisp; plus an Italian-style bombolone doughnut plumped up with pistachio paste – show off the diversity of the house sourdough that the regular pizzas are made from. The remaining two pizzas, however, are made with unique dough formulations.
Synonymous with the city of Turin in northern Italy’s Piedmont region, the padellino is a deep-pan pizza featuring a denser, fluffier base that Brunelli adorns with an airy mousse of nduja and ricotta, olives and small twigs of sundried tomato.
Starring a plinth of thin, crunchy dough topped with smoked scamorza cheese, roasted potatoes and a rubble of pork sausage mince, Rome’s fortifying pala romana is the Eternal City’s best known contribution to the pizza discussion. Be warned: this deep dive into flour power is as filling as it is thrilling – including a rejuvenating bottle of bitter-sweet amaro liqueur in your BYO arsenal would not be a mistake – but for those curious about exploring the near limitless potential of artisan flatbread, it’s an essential experience.
“There isn’t just one style of pizza but many, many styles,” says Brunelli.
“When they are done in the proper way, every single style of pizza can make you go ‘wow’. I love the idea of helping people understand that pizza isn’t a simple dish.”
Maestro’s pizza tasting menu is $80 per person and bookings are essential. The menu is only available for even-numbered bookings (guests share one pizza between two) with sessions available at either 5.30pm or 7.30pm.
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Max Veenhuyzen is a journalist and photographer who has been writing about food, drink and travel for national and international publications for more than 20 years. He reviews restaurants for the Good Food Guide.
