Adelaideans can’t get enough of a good parmi, so the Glam team are always on the look out for Adelaide’s biggest, juiciest, and fantastically-priced parmigianas.
In 2020, we wrote about Roman Pizza’s epic parmi that’s served in a 12″ pizza box. This new parmi at Brooklyn Park’s La Romana Pizza Bar can’t even FIT in a pizza box at all, measuring at approximately 60cm and weighting AT LEAST 1kg each time.
We HAD to investigate. La Romana’s epic parmis are priced at $18 and we are yet to find another parmigiana as big or as cheap as this one!
“Every piece of chicken we cook is different, but it’s always 1kg or more,” said owner Arpit Arya.
“But we don’t want anyone to think we’re just about the quality. We are using the best quality chicken and best quality chips around,” said Arpit.
When the 19-year-old business owner first purchased the Western ‘burbs Pizza shop, La Romana was only selling approximately four parmis a week.
Three weeks after purchasing the venue, La Romana started cooking up 300 parmis a day.
“The problem was that we weren’t prepared for that! With one fryer and one oven, it was next to impossible,” said Arpit.
“A 30 minute wait turned into 2-3 hours. What was funny that people were happy to wait! The next day, I got a new fryer.”
When asked why they make the parmis so big, the answer turned out to be very simple.
“We don’t cook the parmis to make money – I’m just keen to see those shocked expressions and make people happy!” said Arpit.
“We were losing around $1 per parmi, because we were buying such expensive products, but because we got so popular, we were ordering more, and the supplier has given us some concessions.”
Arpit says the money-making comes from the pizzas, while these epic parmis are just for the love of the food.
“I came to Adelaide two years ago to study my Bachelor of Marketing. When I started my first job in hospitality, I didn’t even know how to boil water,” he said.
“A parmigiana was one of the first things I learned how to make from scratch, so I’m sort of attached to this item.
“It’s an awesome feeling handing a massive parmi to someone – the look on their faces and the satisfaction that comes with that is unparalleled.”
La Romana is open from 5pm every day, so check out this beast of a parmi yourselves and challenge your mates!
La Romana is located at 5/329 Henley Beach Road, Brooklyn Park 5032.
Find the shop on Facebook and Instagram.
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