Bolla Milano's CBD cafe offers pizza and focaccia made fresh everyday, along with European sweet treats.

When we step inside Bolla Milano only a few days after its soft launch, we struggle to find a spot. It’s rush hour in James Place and the small cafe is packed with people waiting for coffees, pastries and pizzas to get them through their day.

The only chance we get to talk to co-owner, Simone Hana, is over the bar while he’s rolling out pizza and focaccia dough — all made in-house — and trying to catch up from the unexpected rush.

“Bolla is, if we translate [from Italian] to English, is bubble, and that is what we try to do in our dough,” Simone says.

“The bubble means that there is like a perfect fermentation of the dough, and perfect rise, grow of the dough, and we keep [the bubbles] in the dough so the taste is really light and delicious.”

After moving from Milan to Adelaide in 2022, it was always his and his family’s goal to open up their own hospitality business in Australia, having owned a bakery back in their hometown.

“The first shop was open when I was one, so opened in ’94 in Milan,” Simone says.

“And the second shop we opened was in the CBD of Milan near the Duomo, and it was similar to [Bolla Milano].

“All the products were products in our bakery, and then we had the café and the pastry.”

Bolla Milano, which opened this week in James Place, has a similar offering with a strong focus on takeaway focaccias and pizzas.

As this is Simone’s first business in Australia, he admits he’s still trying to nail his once-perfect dough recipe.

“I’m honest yesterday, we did the first day and it wasn’t, not really perfect,” he says.

“We found Italian flour that was really similar to that one — we use it. Same brand, but a different kind.

“It [came out] really different for me because I keep it as the same recipe that I use in my bakery [in Milan]…because this is first time that I try it [here], we discover a little bit of issue, and today we try to fix it. Today, it’s really better than yesterday.”

Simone says this same problem applies to his sweets.

“Most of the customers were really happy [and gave] many compliments for the food. But I’m not happy, because I know that we can do better,” he says.

“I have only fixed little of bit things because I never tried my recipe here.

“So when I do like my custard here, I discover that is really runny. In Italy, it was perfect because the egg was perfect. Yesterday I discovered and [thought] ‘oh I have to fix something, but I’m happy because the people are happy.”

The Tartufo pizza on show

Although the pizza offering has a thicker base, Simone says it’s not an American-style pizza.

“In Italy, we call it ‘pizza in teglia’,” he says. “It means ‘in a tray’ and it’s influenced by Pala Romana, from Rome.”

In terms of the toppings, Simone has included authentic Italian flavours and pizza favourites.

“We have to do margherita and diavola, because diavola is spicy so Australian people love diavola,” Simone says.

“We have one from Napoli. The flavour is sausage and Italian broccoli.

“Verdure grigliate is like grilled veggie and [then] four kind of cheese and [a] truffle one.”

Also on the menu is a range of focaccias, named after suburbs in Milan.

“So Precotto, for example, the first one is a suburb in Milan… because cotto in Italy is the ham so Precotto [the panini] is the ham,” Simone says.

“San Siro, if people love soccer they know San Siro, because it’s one of the most important stadiums in Italy.

“Navigli is the part of Milan where we have a canal, so it remind me of fish so we put smoked salmon.”

The pastries on offer — though supplied as the kitchen isn’t big enough to make them in-house — range from croissants, cannolis and other European goodies.

Bolla Milano is located at 18A James Place, Adelaide and is open from Monday to Friday from 7am until 5pm, then Saturday and Sunday from 7:30am until 4pm.

Connect with the business on Instagram for more.