About Shop225
How a Neighbourhood Pizzeria Became the Best Neapolitan Pizza in Australia
Shop225 sits on Melville Road in Pascoe Vale South. There is no valet parking, no celebrity chef out front, and no queue of food bloggers staging shots. What there is, every single service, is a kitchen that takes Neapolitan pizza more seriously than almost anyone else in the country. That is not a claim the venue makes for itself. It is what the 50Top Pizza Guide determined after sending their inspectors in anonymously, more than once.
Lorenzo and Roberto opened the doors in late 2016. The idea behind the restaurant that serves the best pizza in Australia was simple to describe and genuinely hard to pull off: bring people with different dietary requirements to the same table and feed them all exceptionally well, without anyone needing to compromise on what ends up in front of them. Traditional Italian food, made from scratch, served in a room where a coeliac, a vegan, a halal diner, and someone with no restrictions at all can sit together and order freely.
That founding principle has not changed. The 72-hour Neapolitan pizza dough is still proved in-house. The pasta is still made by hand. The gnocchi is still prepared fresh each service. The same level of care that went into the first pizza that came out of that wood-fired oven in 2016 goes into every one today.
The 50Top Pizza Verdict
About 50Top Pizza
50Top Pizza evaluates pizza establishments by sending their inspectors to eat at the venue incognito. When attending the venue, they follow a strict set of criteria, including the quality of ingredients, pizza-making techniques, customer service, venue decor, and the overall dining experience. The organisation is widely respected in the pizza industry (possibly the most important worldwide), and its endorsements are highly sought after by pizza makers around the world.
Inspectors do not identify themselves. There are no special preparations made on their behalf. What they eat is what any regular customer would eat on that night. That is precisely why a listing from 50Top carries more weight than a standard review.
Shop225 has been named the best pizza in Australia by the guide, ranked 28th-best pizza in the world, and placed 7th-best in the Asia-Pacific region in 2026. Those results span multiple years of independent assessment, which means they reflect a consistent standard rather than one exceptional night.
The full record of awards and media coverage, including features in Broadsheet, The Age, UrbanList, and the Herald Sun, is on the
publications page.
The Dough, the Oven, the Ingredients
At Shop225, the Neapolitan dough proves for 72 hours before it is touched by the oven. That slow fermentation is not a talking point for the website. It is the reason the crust blisters the way it does, why the base stays light rather than dense, and why a pizza here digests differently from one made with a rushed same-day dough. The wood-fired oven does the rest, producing the kind of char and chew that only comes from the right temperature applied to dough that has actually had time to develop.
The toppings follow the same logic. San Marzano tomatoes, Fior di Latte, fresh basil, and ingredients selected for quality rather than margin. The Margherita here is not a cheap canvas. It is the clearest demonstration of what the kitchen is capable of.
Beyond pizza, the menu carries house-made pasta, including a Spaghetti Carbonara made without cream, home-made gnocchi prepared fresh each day, and a dessert list featuring in-house Tiramisu, Cannoli Siciliani, and Gnocchi dolci. Have a look at the award-winning Shop225 menu to see everything available.
One Table, Every Dietary Need
The other thing that makes Shop225 worth travelling for is not something you typically see discussed in pizza rankings. The kitchen was designed from the start to serve everyone at the table, not just the person without restrictions.
Shop225 holds Coeliac Australia accreditation, making it the first pizza restaurant in the country to receive that certification. The gluten free pizza in Melbourne at Shop225 is prepared in dedicated areas with zero cross-contamination risk. The gluten-free dough is made in-house. It is not a modified version of the regular product. It is its own thing, built to the same standard.
The vegan pizza in Melbourne follows the same principle. Shop225 has been named a top-10 vegan and top-10 vegetarian restaurant by multiple guides. Those listings reflect a kitchen that takes plant-based and dairy-free cooking seriously, rather than adding a token option to satisfy a trend.
For those specifically searching for the best pizza in Melbourne, it is the same kitchen, the same team, and the same standards that produced Australia's top-ranked result. Pascoe Vale South is not far. The same kitchen and team are also available for private functions, bringing that one-table approach to events where every guest can eat well together.
The full range of what the kitchen caters for:
- Traditional Italian
- Wood-fired Neapolitan pizza
- Vegan
- Gluten-Free (Coeliac Australia certified)
- Allergy Friendly
- Dairy Free
- Halal
Finding the Best Pizza in Australia
We are proud of our humble shop, and we want you to feel like a guest in our home when you dine with us. That is what the best pizza in Australia has always been about. Learn more about Shop225 and the story behind the kitchen.
Shop225 is a small venue. It books out. Especially on weekends, walking in without a reservation is a gamble that rarely pays off. The steps below take less than two minutes.
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