The Place
The last time the That’s PRD team caught up with Matt Slack was at our annual Food & Drink Awards, an event at which the friendly proprietor of The Pizza Factory was honored with our ‘Pizza of the Year’ award.
Slack opened his first Guangzhou F&B establishment, the aforementioned Pizza Factory, in Haizhu’s Icon Mall (near Jiangnanxi Station’s Exit B) in back in October 2016. Since then, the DIY ‘za shop has earned considerable praise from both foreign and Chinese clientele and become a destination eatery for Guangzhou pizza lovers from Panyu to Baiyun.
Now, in the opening act of 2018, Slack brings us his follow-up: The Pizza Factory 2.0.
Like its forerunner, the new Pizza Factory is also located in a mall – Yuexiu District’s new(ish) A Mall to be exact, which is located a short stroll from Beijing Lu.
The interior of The Pizza Factory 2.0 is open, well-lit and sports the same fast-casual feel as Slack’s inaugural Jiangnanxi location. Large bags of flour and tins of tomato sauce, among other ingredients, line the back wall – convenient storage, Slack quips on our visit earlier this week, and a chance for customers to take a look at the products being used to craft the restaurant’s edible offerings.
The Food
As its name suggests, The Pizza Factory is all about ‘za! Here you can build your own unlimited topping pizza or order one of the restaurant’s specialty pies. We recommend the former, because, in the immortal words of someone, somewhere: “Custom is king.”
First, choose a size: 9-inch (RMB58), 12-inch (RMB78) or 14-inch (RMB98). Next, choose your desired sauce (tomato, pesto, white or pink) and cheese (mozzarella or a four-cheese blend).
Once you have the pie’s foundation, it’s up to you to adorn it with toppings – of which there is no shortage. Fruit and vegetable options include tomatoes, onions, spinach, roasted bell peppers and cauliflower, olives, jalapenos, corn and pineapple, among others.
In the protein department, The Pizza Factory 2.0 offers pepperoni, Argentine beef, pastrami, chorizo, smoked chicken, bacon, calamari, sausage and shrimp.
Once you’ve chosen your toppings, your pizza will be baked and ready to eat in a lightening-fast two minutes.
If making your own pizza sounds like too much work, we recommend sampling the Fujiyama or cheeseburger pizzas. The Fujiyama comes topped with white sauce, mozzarella cheese, sausage slices, mushrooms and French fries, while the cheeseburger pie is composed of tomato sauce, mozza and cheddar cheeses, minced beef, tomatoes, onions and lettuce.
On our recent visit, we also sampled Slack’s chicken wings (RMB28), which are marinated for 24 hours in a finger-lickin’ ‘pesto-esque’ sauce. Flavor-packed and cooked to near-perfection, these chicken appendages are our choice appetizer at the Factory.
The French onion soup (RMB22) is another noteworthy pre-pizza snack, although we would have enjoyed a tad more cheese suspended in its savory depths.
Dessert? Look no further than the red velvet cupcake (RMB16).
The Vibe
After suffering through two-and-a-half hours of that atrocious new Star Wars film, we were certainly in need of a sequel we could swallow, and The Pizza Factory 2.0 is it. It succeeds in replicating its precursor’s relaxed, casual, family-friendly environment and warm service.
This new shop is perfect for almost any occasion: birthdays, bar mitzvahs, Tinder dates, solo meals, family dinners, snackin’ while selfiein’, the list goes on.
Price: RMB70-100
Who’s going: picky devotees of the ‘za, young Chinese women
Good for: custom eats, crafty cupcakes, your 10-year-old's birthday party
Nearest metro: Gongyuanqian (Exit E), five minutes
Open daily, 11am-10pm. See listing for The Pizza Factory 2.0.
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