Pizza half - half two roast pork and 4 types of cheese - Photo: NHA XUAN
For those who come to the restaurant for the first time, Pizza PHU "hidden" in alley 377 Le Dai Hanh can surprise with its simple and intimate space.
Customers sit at stainless steel tables and plastic chairs, enjoying traditional Italian-style Napoli pizza, harmoniously combined with local flavors.
The restaurant space feels like a family restaurant - Photo: NHA XUAN
Italian Pizza with Roasted Pork and Pickled Cabbage
The restaurant's menu is quite simple, basically only 1 type of salad and 8 types of pizza: Margherita, seafood, 4 cheese, Hawaiian, carbonara, parma ham & rocket, vegetarian pizza and roasted pork with sauerkraut.
The prices are also quite reasonable, pizza has 2 sizes: S (6 pieces) and M (8 pieces), priced from 109,000 to 229,000 VND. Especially, whether it is size S or M, you can order half - half (2 types of topping on the same pizza).
Although there are few dishes, the menu with pictures and full ingredient notes helps diners easily visualize the taste before ordering.
Seafood pizza served with salad at Pizza PHU - Photo: NHA XUAN
For example, the parma ham & rocket pizza has toppings including cream sauce, mozzarella cheese, parma ham, rocket salad, grapes (or cherry tomatoes), and balsamic vinegar.
Seafood pizza combines tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, shrimp, squid, purple onion, pesto sauce and lemon zest, impressing with fresh, crispy seafood and the characteristic aroma of pesto and lemon.
However, the "definite" dish that must be mentioned is the roasted pork and sauerkraut pizza. The pizza consists of cream sauce, mozzarella cheese, crispy roasted pork, mushrooms, sauerkraut and chili powder, bringing a strange yet harmonious taste experience, combining fat, crunchiness, light sourness and mild spiciness.
Roast pork pizza is a must-order dish when coming to the restaurant - Photo: NHA XUAN
“During the recipe testing process, I used many different ingredients and realized that roasted pork has a very unique crunchiness. I wanted each ingredient on the cake to have its own highlight: a little crunchy, a little sour, and the feeling of each different texture when eating,” Ho Tuan Phu, owner of Pizza PHU, shared with Tuoi Tre Online.
The 26-year-old owner has adapted the dishes to suit local tastes. “I tried Italian-made pizza, but it was too salty for Vietnamese tastes. My restaurant is located in an area with mainly Vietnamese and Chinese customers, so I still use quality ingredients but adjust the flavors,” he shared.
Each cake is the meticulous work of Phu in the small kitchen - Video : Pizza PHU
Phu’s shop opens from 3:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., closed on Tuesdays. Before that, he starts preparing the ingredients early, and starts making the dough around 2 p.m. However, the dough was prepared two days before, because it needs to be fermented for 48 hours.
With fresh ingredients like shrimp and squid, about every three days, Phu will go to the market to buy a large quantity, bring it home to process, boil it, then divide it into small portions to freeze.
“At first, I was hesitant about whether to use frozen shrimp or glass shrimp to ensure stable quality and more controllable prices. But in the end, I still chose fresh shrimp and squid, because traditional Neapolitan pizza requires simple ingredients but focuses on the quality of the ingredients. Only then will the flavor of the pizza really stand out,” he said.
Practice spinning pizza with… a towel
Phu's journey of learning to make pizza and opening a shop may not be unfamiliar to many people, because the entire process was shared by him on his TikTok channel @Tuanphupastry with more than 24,000 followers.
More than 200 videos documenting Phu's journey - from the early days of learning how to make cakes on his own, to opening his first shop, studying pizza in depth, and then moving to a new location - have attracted many views and support from the online community.
Viewers loved the young man for his seriousness, perseverance and obvious passion for the profession. However, initially, Phu had no intention of pursuing a career in pizza. In November 2023, he went to study making a variety of European cakes, then worked in the cold kitchen of a bakery.
By chance, Phu and a friend participated in a pizza making contest “for fun” and won first prize. However, Phu said that at that time, he was not really into pizza, until he watched videos about Napoli pizza and started to get inspired.
Phu said, the characteristic of Napoli pizza is... its difficulty, because it requires a long fermentation time, the crust is puffy and soft, light and crispy on the outside, has a slightly sour taste when eaten, especially the crust must be spongy and airless.
The small kitchen space where Phu makes pizzas with his own mark - Photo: NHA XUAN
For several months, whenever he had free time, Phu practiced shaping, flipping, and rotating pizzas with... towels, and only practiced with dough on weekends when he had more time. In October 2024, after quitting his job as a cold-baked pizza maker, Phu opened his first pizza shop.
Phu said there were days when he had to stop selling, or had to give customers a 50% discount because... the batch of dough that day was not up to standard. Then there was a lack of staff, struggling alone, making customers wait sometimes up to an hour for a pizza.
But then things started to pick up, the shop had more staff, the menu went from four original pizzas to eight now. The oven in the open kitchen still bakes pizzas every afternoon, bringing with it the happiness of the person who makes delicious pizzas for customers.
Phu's video series "The days it takes to make a delicious pizza" that once attracted attention on TikTok has an answer, but he still dreams of a bigger shop and his own pizza classes in the future.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/queo-hem-tim-quan-cua-phu-an-pizza-y-vi-heo-quay-cai-chua-20250727191256728.htm
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