Images: Francesca’s Pizza
Christies Beach has a new reason to head down to the foreshore, with Adelaide pizza favourite Francesca’s officially opening its third site, and it has squeezed an entire pizza kitchen into a shipping container.
Francesca’s Pizza + Sandos, situated on Beach Road, brings its signature wood-fired Neapolitan and Sicilian pizzas further south for the first time.
And because no Francesca’s opening would be complete without a little fanfare, the new Christies Beach site is kicking things off with an opening-day deal that is hard to argue with.
$2 pizza portafoglio from 11am.
The Neapolitan street-food favourite is essentially a pizza folded into quarters and eaten with one hand, with “portafoglio” translating to “wallet” in Italian. One will be available per person, in person, until sold out, before returning to its regular $13.95 price after opening day.
The new Francesca’s is housed inside a 20-foot shipping container, which was craned onto the beachfront as one complete unit.
That might sound like a fairly unlikely home for a pizza kitchen, but inside is a very serious piece of equipment, a 1.4-tonne Marana Forni wood-fired oven, shipped from Italy and bolted into the container before the entire structure was lifted into place.
“It’s a proper kitchen, it just happens to be in a box that used to go on ships,” Francesca’s co-founder Aman Takhar said.
“The oven weighs 1.4 tonnes and it was bolted in before the whole thing got craned onto the slab.”
It is a fitting next step for the brand, which has built its following around coastal locations, first opening in Glenelg before adding its Brighton site.
“Brighton and Glenelg are both on the coast. Christies Beach is further down the same beach,” Aman said.
“We kept going in the direction we were already pointed.”
The new site serves the same menu Francesca’s fans know and love, including its wood-fired Neapolitan and Sicilian pizzas, focaccia sandos and signature 48-hour-proofed dough, with flour and tomatoes imported from Italy.
The brand has already built a loyal following across Adelaide, with some customers travelling to its Brighton and Glenelg locations specifically for a Francesca’s fix.
“I hear stories about a lot of our customers travelling all the way to Brighton and Glenelg. Now they can find something a little bit closer,” Aman said.
“I think locals will really enjoy what we’re trying to do here.”
So don’t miss the $2 opening-day special, because it won’t last forever.
Francesca’s Pizza Christies Beach
Where: 13 Beach Rd, Christies Beach SA 5165
Grand opening: Wednesday 16 September from 11am
Opening hours: Sunday–Thursday, 11am–8pm; Friday–Saturday, 11am–9pm
For more information, click here.
