Suburban pizza bar One Sneaky Cheetah has the same commitment to the Napoletana fundamentals as its sibling Pizzateca, but paired with a desire to push beyond boundaries of authenticity.

In a nondescript warehouse between a McDonald’s and an OTR on South Road in Ridleyton, something exciting is happening. Particularly if you’re a pizza fan.

Tony Mitolo and Tim Anderson of Pizzateca have started breaking the rules of their much-loved McLaren Vale restaurant, at a new spot called One Sneaky Cheetah.

This means finally — finally — Adelaide pizza lovers will be able to experience something like a Pizzateca ham and pineapple, albeit under another name.

“We’re bound by rules,” Tony explains of his original restaurant.

“We have a set of guidelines there that are that brand, and we make the sauce a certain way… all these sorts of things. But it’s Italian pizza, or Oztalia or whatever.

“Whereas this, we can go crazy. But we can do it on that level. Hopefully.”

One Sneaky Cheetah launched quietly over the summer break and has been operating for about a month.

The fundamentals of the restaurant are the same as its McLaren Vale sibling – the sauce is made from scratch (from tomatoes Tony’s dad, Vito, has grown); the dough, which here is made from mostly Australian flour, has gone through a 48-hour preparation; and, most importantly for the One Sneaky Cheetah concept, there is the same attention paid to quality of ingredients.

In the case of the ham and pineapple, the leg ham is shaved off the bone, and the pineapple was selected after trialling six different types and exploring a multitude of potential thicknesses of slice.

For One Sneaky Cheetah’s smoky barbecue chicken, the barbecue sauce is a house creation, made using the Pizzateca sauce. Chef Domenico Vallelongo (who still refuses to eat the ham and pineapple, but trusts his colleagues when they tell him it’s good) also put considerable effort into working out how to treat the chicken for the best and most flavourful final product.

“For me, it is [an interesting challenge], because… we never used chicken on the pizza,” says Domenico, who has also worked at Pizzateca and Madre.

“Almost five years ago, when I first arrived in Australia, a friend of mine said, ‘Oh, you’re going to try the chicken on the pizza?’ I tried. It was one of the Domino’s pizza, or something like that, and I say, ‘If this is the chicken on the pizza, there’s a reason I haven’t tried before, because I don’t like’.

“When [we decided] we’re going to do the chicken on the pizza with the barbecue sauce [here] – alright, which is the best way to cook the chicken that give the right value to the meat itself?”

For purists, there are also simpler pizzas on the menu. There is the Rosso (a marinara), the Rita (a margherita), and the Cheesy (feat. mozzarella, parmigiano and asiago).

Adelaide-based Voice Design created One Sneaky Cheetah’s branding

One Sneaky Cheetah is a dine-in establishment, but it is also listed on third-party delivery platforms. Knowing many customers will experience an OSC slice after it’s travelled, the team designed recipes with this in mind.

“We picked our cheese on how it congealed,” Tony explains. “We tasted it fresh, we tasted it when it was cooked, straight away, and we tasted it 20 minutes after, and we ended up somewhere in the middle. So we really feel like it’s all been considered.”

For those who are dining in (and are of legal drinking age), there is also a One Sneaky Cheetah beer, made by Big Shed Brewing.

It is a European-style lager based on the madcap blending of a Castello and a Peroni – an experiment initially conducted during work drinks on a Sunday after service at Pizzateca.

“It was a stupid idea, but [someone] said, ‘Mix them together, see what happens’,” Tony says.

“I don’t know if we were just all excited, but we were like, ‘That is perfect’.

“Big Shed were really cool about it.”

At the heart of One Sneaky Cheetah is a sense of fun and experimentation.

The goal was to remove some of the pretension that comes with pizza culture.

“Certain cuisines, and pizza especially, can have a pretentiousness,” Tim says.

“Even though we’re doing our style of pizza, I’m not trying to put a snobbiness to it. It’s just in a raw warehouse, we’re just making what we know, which is good, and that’s it. There’s no frills to it.”

To Tony, who has drummed for popular Australian dance bands, there is a music metaphor that explains the difference between the likes of Pizzateca or Madre and One Sneaky Cheetah.

At his McLaren Vale and CBD restaurants, the kitchens are set up for theatrics. The ovens face outward to allow customers to see the flames, to know exactly the type of experience they’re in for.

This, Tony says, is like Metallica playing an arena show. “They stand in formation,” he says. “No one’s looking at each other, they know all the songs, they’ve done it before, the lights are there, the amps are there, it’s all for [the audience].”

At One Sneaky Cheetah, the ovens face each other, with a prep area situated between them. This, to extend the metaphor, is Metallica in a rehearsal room.

“When they’re rehearsing and writing songs and making things, trying to be as creative as they can be or as quick as they can be getting an idea across, they’re all facing each other,” Tony says.

“I just want it to work and flow. Because our aim is to make the best quality pizza we can, from every step of the way. No skimping. Right through, as quickly as possible.”

One Sneaky Cheetah is located at 243 South Road, Ridleyton, and opens from 5pm seven days.

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