Ever since Altpizza opened multiple outlets and standards dropped, I’ve been looking for a new favourite pizzeria and I think I found it. Craft Pizza on the second floor of a shophouse at Boat Quay has only about 10 tables or so; reservation is highly encouraged.

But making a reservation was frustrating. The restaurant is listed for reservations on Chope but I could never get a table. Turned out I had to telephone them. What’s the point of having an online service when they limit online reservation? I’m an introvert, I hate talking to strangers on the phone.

The menu is simple: starters, pizzas, calzones, and pastas. It’s best to come in a group of 4 so that you can have two pizzas and a couple of side dishes. If you come as a couple, you can only try a pizza and a pasta.

Crispy chicken “parm” wings $14

The starters are limited and not very interesting. Most of the ingredients in the starters are recycled in the pizzas, so if you decide to skip starters, you won’t be missing anything.

One thing that I find missing among the starter menu is a decent salad. I was hoping to get some fibre.

We got the Crispy chicken “parm” wings ($14), 5 pieces of deep-fried de-boned wings topped with tomato sauce and mozzarella. It is decent enough, but the toppings destroy the “crispy” which is part of the name of the dish.

Carbonara ($26)

They use fusilli for carbonara ($26), but the cute fusilli looks like it has a perm gone wrong, like thick curly instant noodles, instead of the usual cockscrew shape. The carbonara is cooked in a traditional Italian way like I did on instagram: pasta coated with egg and cheese, no cream or milk.

They use a good aged parmesan, slightly pungent, which makes the carbonara moreish. It is very tasty although I wish there is more pancetta in there. Meat is life.

Carne Rossa

You can order red (tomato-based) or white (cream-based) pizzas. Their topseller is carne rossa ($32), which isn’t surprisingly when you read the menu and eliminate other pizzas for lack of proteins.

The crust is amazing. Fermented for 48 hours, the dough is made from a blend of four types of flour including fine imported Tipo 00 Italian and locally hand-milled stone-ground flours. As a result, the outside is crispy but the inside is airy and fluffy.

Is it thin-crust or thick crust? I used to like thin crust but as I got to know more about pizza, thin crust is really a poor excuse for a pizza, it’s for cooks that can’t make a good crust and customers with poor taste who don’t know what a good crust is. The crust here is neither thin nor bread-thick. It’s the perfect ratio.

A pity they use electric oven and not wood-fired oven. But still they managed to achieve “leopard spots,” characteristic of Neapolitan pizzas. Pizzas with “leopard spots” are the best.

For the tomato paste, they make it themselves using fresh Italian San Marzano tomatoes.

For the toppings, they pickled their own chili and imported the incredibly delicious fennel sausage from Italy. The carne rossa pizza is supposed to come with homemade meatballs, but ours didn’t. (I just realise this as I am writing this review and checking the menu, or I would have asked them why on the spot.)

All in all, this is a fantastic pizza. The toppings, the tomato pasta, and the crust join together to make a perfect meal.

We spent $80 for two persons.

Food: 7.25/10
Decor/ambience: 6.5/10 (quite cute and rustic)
Price/value: 5.5/10
Service: 8/10

You may be interested in…
–Lucali BYGB, Lavender: Lifestyle Pizza
–Pizza Maru, Bugis+: Korea’s Largest Pizza Chain is Better for Their Fried Chicken
–Blue Label Pizza, Ann Siang: Atas Pizzeria from Sister Restaurant of Luke’s Oyster Bar
–California Pizza Kitchen, Claymore Connect: Who ordered Priest-Stranglers?

Written by Dr. A. Nathanael Ho.