Last month, eight years after opening, pioneering wine bar Monopole swapped its Potts Point home for a swish new CBD space, leaving behind what founders Brent Savage and Nick Hildebrandt realised was the perfect place to open the pizza joint they’d always talked about.

“Nick and I both love pizza and we always joked about opening our own pizzeria,” Savage tells Broadsheet. “This felt like the right time to open Ria.”

Given that the other venues in the Bentley Group (Yellow, Cirrus, Monopole, Bentley) occupy spots in the upper echelons of Sydney’s dining scene, it’s not surprising Savage has strong opinions about what makes a good pizza.

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“Pizza is very personal. I wanted to make something that reflects what I like about pizza, and that’s all about the crisp base,” he says. “I’m not into the burnt style that’s popular at the moment. Some people do it really well, but if you’re not careful you end up with a mouthful of ash.”

Cooking the pizza base properly is important, but so is the process of making the dough. “We do a sourdough base, with a biga [a pre-fermented baker’s yeast starter],” says Savage. “It’s fermented for 36 hours before we mix the dough. After the dough is made, it’s fermented for another 24 hours.”

The result is at first crisp, then chewy – a bit like the pizzas you might find in Rome or northern Italy. “It’s not a Napoletana-style pizza, the influence is northern. But what we’re doing isn’t really Italian, it’s Australian,” says Savage.

The Australian influence is evident in the toppings – which include northern Queensland prawns, octopus from WA, and saltbush – as well as in sides such as Sydney rock oysters, and the use of plenty of fresh produce.

At first glance, the succinct, casual menu appears to be a departure from the group’s other venues, but Savage says the ingredients they’re using are actually very familiar.

“We’re doing things like an octopus, ’nduja and green-chilli salsa pizza – all things that have featured in Bentley’s menus for a decade or more.”

The toppings are creative. There’s a prawn, tomato, saltbush and XO pizza, and a shaved ham, clam, parsley and capers option. But others lean more traditional. “We’ve got a good mix of classics – potato, salami, margherita – so we’re doing interesting toppings plus something that’s more familiar.”

There are also decadent additions such as white truffle, bottarga and Black Pearl beluga caviar (which will set you back $180 for 30 grams). But overall, Ria Pizza & Wine offers a more casual experience than the group’s other venues, with walk-ins and takeaway encouraged.

As always, sommelier Hildebrandt is overseeing the wine list, which is a small, streamlined collection of his favourite producers.

Although the original Monopole dining room remains mostly intact, Ria is dominated by a “recolouring” project by Melbourne artist Ash Keating. “The bones of the place are really good – we didn’t need to change the layout, so it made perfect sense for us to go a bit crazy on the painting.”

The result is colourful and dramatic. Splashes of fluoro paint covers the ceilings, walls and an industrial sculpture that hangs from the centre of the room. Lengths of illuminated ropes hang like bunting from the ceiling, emphasising the paint spatters.

“It’s like stepping into an Ash Keating painting and eating pizza,” says Pascale Gomes-McNabb, a frequent design collaborator with the group.

Ria is the Bentley Group’s fifth venue, and although Savage and Hildebrandt are old hands at opening, the excitement has never waned. “The stresses of opening are still there. We’re more experienced on how to handle each situation, but we still take it very seriously,” Savage says.

“We don’t rest on our laurels and hope it will happen. We work really hard.”

Ria Pizza & Wine
71 Macleay St, Potts Point
(02) 8080 9640

Hours
Wed to Sun 5pm–late

riapizza.com.au