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Longrise

Oven lit Wednesday to Sunday

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Three days to rise. Ninety seconds in the fire.

78 Hour 78 · tonight, 5 pm

In the oven now: a margherita from tonight's dough. Drag it round to face the fire, the way we turn it with the peel.

Ninety seconds, turned three times

Slide in another

Longrise is a wood-fired pizzeria in Semaphore. The dough sits for three days before it meets the fire. Every bit of meat is halal, and there's no pork in the building. Eat in, or take it down to the beach.

See this season's pizzas

0 Hour 0 → 76

Three days

Every pizza we bake tonight was mixed on Monday morning. Three days is what it takes for the dough to taste of something, and to puff in the fire the way it should.

The night before, we make a biga: a stiff starter of flour, water and a pinch of yeast. By morning it smells of fruit.

At eleven it goes into the dough with the rest of the flour, the water and the salt. We ball it by hand, give it two hours on the bench, then seventy in the cold room. Cold slows the yeast almost to a stop, but not quite: it keeps making gas, gently, and with the time it makes a flavour a quick, warm dough never has. That gas is what puffs the rim into blisters in the fire.

On the third afternoon the trays come out to warm for four hours. The flour is wheat grown and stone-milled north of Adelaide, with a little wholemeal. The salt is sea salt from the Gulf.

Floured hands rounding a ball of dough on a timber bench, a tray of resting dough balls beside them

Set the cold room

Ours sits at four degrees for seventy hours. Move either, and watch what the yeast does with it. The green dots are the batches we have on the go today, by our schedule.

How our dough rises over three days: slowly in the cold room, then to about two and a half times its size in the four hours it warms, ready by 3 pm on the third day. 1×2×3×Mon 11 amhour 0Tue24Wed48Thu72Fri96 ready to bake into the cold · 4 °Cout to warm into the fire, 5 pm Thursday mixed
4 °C
70 hours
Rise at the fire
2.5×
Ready
hour 76 · 3 pm Thursday
Good until
hour 86 · 12.30 am Friday
Flavour
deep

Ready at 3 pm, bang on for the fire at five.

Seventy hours at four degrees.

Illustrative. Worked out in your browser from a simple yeast model.

75 Hour 75 · 2 pm · lit

When the fire goes in

The fire goes in at two, Wednesday to Sunday.

We burn split red gum and almond prunings from the Riverland, dry and cut small so they flame clean.

The dome goes black with soot first. As the bricks reach heat the soot burns off and the dome turns pale. That's how we know the oven's ready, not a dial.

The floor sits around four hundred degrees; the dome, hotter. The fire stays at the back left all night, and we feed it a split at a time between pizzas.

  • Wednesday to Sunday
  • Pizzas from 5 pm
  • Until the dough runs out

Monday and Tuesday the oven rests. The dough doesn't: it's in the cold room, getting ready for the week.

Flames licking up the inside of the brick dome, the bricks near the fire burnt pale and the far side still sooty

78 Hour 78 · 5 pm

Ninety seconds

From the peel to the plate takes about as long as it took you to read this far down the page. Here's what happens in it.

  1. 0 s In Slid off the peel onto the floor, close to the fire.
  2. 20 s First turn The rim facing the flame puffs and catches. We lift and turn it a quarter.
  3. 45 s Second turn The other side gets its turn. The cheese is bubbling.
  4. 80 s Lift Held up into the dome for a few seconds to finish the top, then out.
Cornicione
The puffed rim, from the Italian for cornice. It's where three days of gas ends up.
Pala
The peel: the long, flat paddle we slide pizzas in and out with.
Leopard spots
The thinnest bubbles on the rim, the first to char.
Hands tearing the blistered rim of a pizza open, steam rising from the airy crumb inside
A cook's hands on the long peel, turning a pizza inside the glowing oven mouth

Spring

This season's pizzas

The menu is short and changes when the season does. This is spring.

  • Marinara

    Tomato, garlic, oregano, olive oil.

    No cheese, and the one we eat most ourselves.

  • Margherita

    Tomato, fior di latte, basil, olive oil.

    Fior di latte is fresh cow's-milk mozzarella.

  • Spring lamb

    Halal lamb shoulder, slow-cooked and pulled, broad beans, mint, ricotta, lemon.

  • Fennel sausage

    Halal beef sausage we make with fennel seed and chilli, broccolini, fior di latte.

  • Chicken and leek

    Halal chicken thigh, charred leek, potato, rosemary, fior di latte.

  • Asparagus

    A white base, asparagus, peas, ricotta, lemon zest and a little hard cheese.

Something sweet Pizza fritta: dough folded, fried and filled with ricotta, lemon and honey. Or a slice of orange and almond cake.

Also on the table Blood orange soda, lemon squash, apple juice from the Adelaide Hills, mint tea, espresso.

What's on it, and what isn't

All the beef, lamb and chicken we cook is halal. There's no pork on the menu or in the kitchen, not in a topping, not in a stock. Our cheeses are made with non-animal rennet, and we don't serve alcohol.

Ask us about anything on the menu and we'll tell you where it came from.

78 Hour 78 · 6.15 pm

Eat in, or take it down to the beach

Long timber tables and benches, two arched windows onto the street, and the oven in view from every seat.

Walk in and we'll find you a seat. For eight or more, knock on the oven door below.

Pizzas come out of the oven one at a time, so a table's pizzas arrive a minute or two apart. We cut them, and you share.

Boxes are vented so the crust doesn't steam soft on the short walk to the foreshore and the jetty.

The dining room before opening: long timber tables, arched windows onto the pines, the oven glowing at the far end

78 Hour 78 · any night

Knock on the oven door

A table for a group, pizzas for a crowd to take away, or a question about what's on them.

Tell us the evening and how many, and we'll come back to you before the fire goes in.

What's it about