Leonardo’s Pizza Palace

Rating: 4.5 ⭐

Ordered: 
- Margherita pizza: $28.5
- Supreme pizza: $36
- Pork and fennel sausage pizza: $33.5
- Peach and burrata pizza: $30   
- Potato and gorgonzola pizza: ???
- Prawn linguine: $34
- Creste di Gallo pasta (special): ???
- Tiramisu: $15

I came here as part of a social dinner. We had a group of about 25 people but my table had 8. We shared 5 pizzas and 2 pastas and one dessert and it was the perfect amount of food. (6 girls and 2 guys, if that helps at all.)

A couple of people from our group had said that this was their favourite pizza restaurant, so I went into this with some high expectations. The place is called a "palace" and to be honest the exterior did sort of give the vibe of a palace. The interior decor was really nice, we came at night so the soft lighting was super moody and they had candles on all the tables. 

I have to admit I was comparing the pizzas to Max's. In my opinion nothing can beat Max's. This place's pizzas did kind of disappoint in that regard, but I was also rating it harshly because of the high expectations everyone set. Overall I felt that none of the pizzas were particularly outstanding by themselves; they were mostly good (and woodfired, which is a must) but I wasn't particularly blown away by any of them. I'd say they are good at combining odd flavours well. I'll rate all the foods separately: 

Potato and gorgonzola pizza was my favourite. I don't think it'd been on the menu for very long. It had a bit of an Asian flair to it, topped with spring onions. The potato pieces were quite small and not extremely noticeable but I liked the flavour. It was a very different flavour of pizza to what we would normally get. 

My next favourite was actually the margherita. It was basic, but it was the only pizza from here that I felt actually did something really well. It was the perfect match of cheese and tomato. That's all I really have to say. Very solid pizza. 

The supreme was my next favourite. It tasted like a burger. It wasn't particularly groundbreaking.

The pork and fennel sausage was touted as a gid fan favourite, and I tried a slice of that one first, but I found I didn't really like it. It tasted like cheese with some pork sprinkled through, I found the flavour really quite basic. Surprised about that one.

The peach and burrata was an experimental order. It was very very plain. The burrata was alright, the rocket was doing its thing, the peach was nowhere to be seen. I did not taste even a hint of peach. It basically tasted like rocket and burrata on a pizza. Very plain.

The prawn linguine was good. I didn't really get to try this one, by the time it got to me there wasn't much left. Not sure if this originally had full prawns in it but I only got small diced bits of seafood. 

The special pasta was actually really nice. I actually have no idea what kind of pasta it was, it looked a bit like ravioli at first but it was crescent shaped with frills. The sauce for this pasta was the highlight. I preferred this over the prawn linguine, which was fine but again not groundbreaking.

The saving grace for this food experience was definitely the tiramisu. I would rate the tiramisu 5 stars. It was presented beautifully, in this boat shape. I would hesitate to really call it tiramisu because I'd say it was probably 80% cream. There was only a very small amount of ladyfinger biscuits (slightly on the tougher side, maybe not soaked enough) at the very bottom. But the cream was heavenly. I have no idea how they made the cream but it tasted amaaaaazing. Best "tiramisu" I've ever had to be honest. 

I think this place has a card surcharge. It was good; just not quite enough to earn 5 stars.