Do you fancy impressing your friends and family with homemade signature-style gourmet wood-fired pizza?
Chances are you do.
In that case, look further than the kitchen at home, but no further than Guidos Kragga Kamma.
The little family restaurant and grill in Beverley Grove has not let up on serving mouthfuls of delectable delights, satisfying hungry stomachs across the metropole.
When Weekender visited the popular eatery, it was bustling.
And, thanks to its mouthwatering SA-inspired cuisine with a dash of Italian, while other businesses around it closed doors on the back of the Covid-19 pandemic, it stood steadfast as a crowd favourite.
Restaurant owner Lee Hensburg’s spicy zest and punchy humour adds to the warm ambience.
On one wall is an eye-catching ensemble of 45 wily ceramic side plates. And the charming decorative pieces greet you with some quirky quotes.
The next few steps take you deeper into the mild atmosphere of the chic establishment.
Unmissable are the mounted roller pins — Hensburg’s handiwork — and the cheese graters creatively turned into decorative lamp pieces above wide, cushioned seating.
An outside area, where children can play, also provides an area for cheery adults to sit around a fire pit with a cold beverage.
Courtesy of the friendly waiting staff and the splendour of the pizza menu, you might find yourself tempted to go for every one of the 33 delicious toppings.
Meaty options range from marinated beef strips, ham, spare rib, biltong and boerewors to anchovies, tuna, mince, chicken, bacon and Russian sausages.
After finding some inspiration with a plate of delicious calamari starters, I decided I’d go easy but experimental, choosing a meaty combination of beef strips and biltong on my pizza.
To balance it, I slotted in an explosive cheese trio of cheddar, mozzarella and feta.
With my long-sleeve chef jacket on, I went in to make my own pizza, first rolling the dough under the watchful eye and guidance of an enthusiastic and experienced pizza chef.
Before calling Guidos home nine months ago, Anderson Idrissah spent two years tantalising taste buds at Cape Town’s Scalzini's Pizza.
With the dough flattened, next came a generous dose of freshly made tangy and sweet tomato base on top.
This made way for generous sprinkles of cheddar and mozzarella onto my pizza.
Next was diced pineapples, then the BBQ-marinated beef strips.
It was then into the oven.
Ten minutes of oven baking later, with occasional rotating, Idrissah instructed me on how to carefully remove the near-ready delight using a pizza shovel.
With the cheese bubbling, I topped it off with traditional biltong slices, added feta chunks, and slotted it back in for a final three-minute bake.
And ... voila, my pizza was ready for eating.
Biting into my first warm slice, I couldn’t tell, at that point, what I enjoyed more; eating or making it.
And it’s exactly this that’s on offer for the free-spirited, adventurous, and daring foodie at Guidos Kragga Kamma on their birthday.
For Hensburg, for now, the idea was for a customer celebrating their birthday inside the restaurant’s welcoming four walls to dig into a tasty treat of their own making.
The pizza dough, tomato base and all the toppings of your choice will be brought to your table, where you can go for broke, and deservedly so on your special day.
There will be an additional fiery temptation up for the taking for chilli connoisseurs — “Mama Lee’s special sauce”, voted the overall best craft sauce at Bay Chillis' Chilli Festival last year.
But until the next contest, where Hensburg will craft another award-winning chilli sauce to go with your signature self-styled pizza, bake away!
Weekender