La Disfida in Haberfield is still one of Sydney’s best pizza restaurants

“Currently on La Disfida,” a friend sent the other week. “It's easily in the pantheon of great Sydney pizzerias.” A powerful call, yes, but it was coming from a fellow who grew up in New York City, which everyone knows is where pizza was invented. It was all I needed to hear to make a lunch reservation at La Disfida as it had also been years since my last visit to the Haberfield icon.

When Ruggiero Lattanzio opened the Ramsay Street restaurant in the 1990s, Sydney's pizza scene was still in the Super Supreme era. You might come across a slice of some salmon and pea nonsense in a chichi Surry Hills tratt, but it was an era largely dominated by Pepsi refills, stuffed crusts, deep pans and Dial- a-Dino's. Leichhardt had its reliable red-sauce places, but the Italo-Oz community didn't really get excited about 'down-home' pizza until Napoli a Bocca and La Disfida launched in Haberfield around the same time.

The local families were Team Bocca or Club Disfida. It was Ford versus Holden, Milo versus Nesquik. Peter Zuzza took over La Disfida in 2009 (he had run his family's Mixing Pot restaurant in Glebe), kept Lattanzio's pizza recipes, and sold the business to Debbie Colacicco two years ago.

I have been to La Disfida three times in the last four weeks, such is the power of attraction of its illuminated dining room.

The two-story restaurant remains packed every weekend, and manager Simone Busi runs a tight, friendly ship on the floor. The Naples place at Bocca is now a confusing looking “Asian fusion” joint, so I guess we finally have a winner.

I have been to La Disfida three times in the last four weeks, such is the attraction of its illuminated dining room and winter cooking. I want to be surrounded by Campari posters and the painting of Disfida di Barletta, the eponymous medieval barney between French and Italian knights. I want to see the wrinkled pizzaiolos working in the wood oven. I want to take the leftovers home for dinner tomorrow night, eaten on the couch with a John le Carre movie adaptation and bags of sangiovese.

Penne al forno ($35) is a pasta seemingly designed for watching Cold War spies from under a woolen blanket: a rich oven-roasted pork sausage ragout with melted mozzarella, ricotta and Parmesan, plus of a top layer of golden breadcrumbs.

Bitey pappardelle is wrapped in a wild boar ragout ($37) of impressive depth. Salt and pepper spatchcock ($35) comes with sharp peperonata and a batter not too dissimilar to Southern fried chicken. (Look, I don't really mean “big KFC vibes,” but there's really no other way to say it.)

Each of these dishes was ordered from the special menu, which features a dozen new or returning items each week. It's not the end-of-the-day hibernation team, either, and you can find yellowfin tuna tartare with avocado and horseradish ($31) alongside four-cheese arancini ($23). One of the salad specials is always a smart order, such as a number of pear, cabbage and very tart goat cheese ($22) that appeared in late June.

Anyway, the pizza. Does it live up to the hype? Indeed. Absolutely. The base is thin, chewy and slightly salty, flexible, but still strong: the ingredients do not slide. The sauce is brilliant. No one at Disfida will talk about the (frankly boring) world of dough hydration rates and flour types. The staff just wants you to know that the kitchen uses San Marzano tomatoes and fior di latte buffalo mozzarella. The good things.

A margherita topped with fresh basil costs $23 and doesn't have those little pools of grease that plague lesser pizzas. The Diavola ($27) is paved with intense heat salami, olives and the occasional anchovy.

Lattanzio created the Disfida ($28) for his restaurant's opening menu, and it's barely changed since: a triple punch of olives, capers and anchovies tempered with ham and smoked mozzarella. Great with a glass of Andrea Occhipinti's fresh, dry Alter Alea Bianco 2020 ($17) made from Aleatico grapes grown north of Rome.

If I have to name a favorite pizza, it's the salsiccia e funghi ($28), starring juicy marinated pebbles of pork sausage, mushrooms and more olives. Second is a well-prepared recent special with salami, strands of bitter green friarielli and small islands of whipped ricotta ($29).

Like any good pizza, it's best eaten at the source, but everything is available to go, and my wife is picking up the salsiccia e funghi and a panettone bread and butter pudding ($14) as I finish these lines. My only tasks are to find some chianti and get ready Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

This review was originally published on Have a great weekend magazine