Thursday, December 27, 2012

A slice of cielo @ Cielo Gourmet Pizza Pasta

I've never been a fan of pizza chains (well maybe with exception to Domino's, I am in fact quite in lust with their smoked bacon and blue cheese pizza). But then again that may have more to do with my love affair with blue cheese, than the quality of their pizza. My chain snobbery keeps me on the lookout for a good local (and not quite so local) pizza joints and I think I may just have stumbled upon a gem in Cielo.


Cielo is admittedly one of my favourite pizza places in Melbourne. It's one of those places I go to so often but always forget to review, I'm constantly telling myself I'll get some pictures next time, but it never seems to happen. So I've decide to post what I have and review it anyway, because it's just too good to keep a secret.

On a balmy summer evening U, V, R and I decided to have our dinner down at the beach and headed to Cielo to pick up a pizza or two. Tempted by their menu and fueled by our indecisiveness, we ended up leaving with three pizzas between the four of us. We settled on a large Vegipatch ($16.50), consisting of;
a Napoli sauce base, mozzarella, button mushrooms, roasted potato, roasted eggplant, roasted pumpkin, roasted red peppers, baby spinach topped with goats cheese. We also chose a medium sized prosciutto pizza, with an olive oil base, mozzarella, prosciutto, garnished with rocket, shaved parmesan cheese and topped with a balsamic drizzle ($16.50)and lastly a medium sized tandoori pizza, with a Napoli-tandoori sauce base and packed full of; mozzarella, chicken fillets, spanish onions, roasted red capsicum, topped with tzatziki ($14.20). 

We bundled our pizzas into the car and drove down to the nearby beach. We sat on the rocks and lay our pizzas down ready to eat, only to be confronted by what can be best described as a colony of about a dozen huge rats. Regardless of our not so welcome dinner guests, we moved our pizzas out of reach and devoured each and every one of them, though I'm still not quite sure how we managed to finish them all. The prosciutto was my pick of the night (I think one of my local Indian shops does a much better tandoori chicken pizza) and I highly recommend the vegipatch too, for all you vego's out there.Though we didn't have it on this occasion if you end up trying out Cielo's, the asparagus pizza comes with high recommendations. The joint also does decent pasta, however its their pizza that I visit them for.

I can't really fault Cielo, their prices are reasonable, the owner is always friendly and welcoming and their pizzas speak for themselves. In Italian 'cielo', depending on the context of use can mean heaven, such a name may be hard to live up to, but one must say Cielo certainly tries.


Cielo Gourmet Pizza Pasta on Urbanspoon 
My Rating: 7/10

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