Make your favourite Pirie Street pizza at home with Pizza e Mozzarella's cook-at-home pizza kit, which includes 72-hour slow-fermented dough, sauce, mozzarella and basil.

Pirie Street restaurant Pizza e Mozzarella Bar is well known for its slow-fermented dough and secret sauce, which, when combined, make some of the city’s best-loved pizzas.

Now with the COVID-19 shutdown forcing the restaurant into a takeaway retreat, the business is helping people cook restaurant-quality pizzas in their own homes. The business launched its cook-at-home kits a little over three weeks ago, with their popularity quickly growing to rival cooked takeaway pizzas as the most popular order.

Pizza e Mozzarella’s sister business Chicken & Pig is also ramping up its takeaway and home delivery services in a bid to keep its full-time staff in jobs.

The two businesses have been forced to stand down a total of 10 casual staff, while keeping on six full-timers, as revenues plummet by as much as 80 per cent.

Pizza e Mozzarella and Chicken & Pig co-owner Natalie Albany came up with the idea for the cook-at-home kits shortly after the business switched its trading hours to a takeaway model.

“Our staff have been really positive about the changes, they have been with us for seven or eight years so they are part of our family,” Natalie says.

“We are quite determined business-minded people so we can’t close the doors, we’re not going to give up that easily.”

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The meal kits include four 72-hour slow-fermented dough balls, pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella, basil and cooking instructions. Additional ingredients can be purchased from the restaurant or added at home.

“We’re still offering takeaway and delivery but I thought families are going to be home and it’s a good opportunity for kids to cook with their parents – that’s how I learned with my mum and my grandma,” Natalie says.

“This is a humble way to stay focused and committed to our business and our motto: we want people to feel happy when they eat, and I hope that’s what we can achieve when people make our pizzas at home.”

The restaurant has purchased a scooter to do its own deliveries and strengthened its offerings through Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Menulog.

It also has a takeaway drinks list, featuring First Drop Wines from the Barossa Valle,y and has introduced pre-made cocktail kits to be served at home.

Natalie is also a part-owner of Brooklyn Park pizza bar Chicco Palms, which is also now offering cook-at-home kits.

She says the western suburbs eatery has made a seamless shift to takeaway, with the cook-at-home kits proving a huge hit.

“Chicco Palms has been quite popular from day one – in the suburbs it’s very different to the city,” she says.

“We started the pizza kits there as well and the other weekend we sold 600 balls of dough, so that’s a lot of pizza kits going out.

“If it’s a way of bringing families back together and enjoying each other’s company then it’s quite a humbling way of getting through this difficult time that everyone’s going through.

“It’s been a really big success and when we get through all of this it’s definitely something that we’ll continue with in the future.”

For more information on Pizza e Mozzarella’s takeaway, delivery and cook-at-home options, visit the website.