Go wild with pizza at Wild Child Pizzette

Newly-opened Wild Child Pizzette at Circular Road is a contemporary pizzeria and bar that goes big on small pizzas.

What is it about pizza that has the world enraptured? Even in Singapore, the number of dining establishments offering this humble pie is absolutely staggering. Aside from your usual fast food joints they can range from traditional outfits like La Nonna and Al Forno to more modern concepts such as Amò and Blue Label Pizza & Wine; these days even home-based businesses make pizza to sell across the island.

And not just in the eating, mind you, but also in its making. One of the latest to open is Wild Child Pizzette at Circular Road by the Cicheti Group, just so that chef and co-owner Lim Yew Aun can indulge in his child-like devotion to discover his inner pizzaiolo and make the perfect Neapolitan-style pizza.

To be fair, his fellow Cicheti Group co-owners – veteran restaurateur Liling Ong and seasoned sommelier Ronald Kamiyama – were also allowed to express their personal passions with Wild Child Pizzette. It’s probably why Ong envisioned the new concept as a casual space with modern Japanese/Scandinavian minimalism – along with its cutesy Keith Haring-esque designs – while Kamiyama indulged himself in a curating a more eclectic drinks programme than what’s available at sister outlets Cicheti and Bar Cicheti.

The food is stunning. Chef Aun’s 10-inch pizzettes – these smaller-sized, personal pizzas also known as pizzettas – are fun and inventive without being overly pretentious. Wild Child Pizzette offers them in seven different flavours, ranging from a traditional Margherita D.O.P and the popular Marinara to more contemporary combinations such as the Cavolo Nero – essentially a kale pizza – as well as the Spianata Calabrese, the latter of which is topped of spicy salami and further spiced up with lashings of Sichuan chilli-infused honey.

If the usual funkiness of blue cheese in a quattro formaggio scares you, the Trio Formaggio here – which combines Taleggio, Grana Padano, and fresh fior di latte – is a far more delicate and agreeable version of the cheese pizza. An absolute winner is the Crispy Fried Magherita. Technically a pizza fritta – a pizza which sees its base deep fried instead of baked – this tastes wholly like an Indian bhatura with Margherita toppings. The latter is absolutely lip-smackingly good.

Don’t forget the sides too. Cauliflower is a dish with a decidedly Middle Eastern influence, where roasted cauliflower is tossed with labneh and a variety of herbs and pistachios. Then there’s the Bikini, which are finger-sized sandwiches of pulled beef cheek and cheese that’s absolutely delicious (albeit a rather bizarre find on the menu of a pizzeria, even a modern one). A far better idea is the (similarly misplaced) Kurobuta. This is pork belly roasted to perfection, with shatteringly crisp pork skin harbouring moistly tender flesh so juicy even the best Cantonese roast masters will approve. Dip it in the accompanying chilli oil; your tastebuds will roar in approval.

Then there’s the drinks programme. Wild Child offers a modest selection of beers, wines, cocktails, and even sake, that you can pair with your pizettes. Where sommelier Kamiyama gets to go wild is the way he chooses to serve his wines. Sure you can choose your tipple by the bottle like how you would normally do at a restaurant. But with the house wines you order by colour and style – Red – Bold and Fleshy, for example, or Macerated – Orange – with producer and grape varietal not stated. It’s a bold way to do it, but we reckon that won’t bother most diners anyway. It also allows Kamiyama to switch things up a bit for more variety with house pours.

There’s “sommakase” too, where you leave your wine choice totally up to him. Or “smackdown hour”, where you can do a blind tasting and get generous discounts if you guess correctly the country the wine is from, the grape varietal, and the producer.

Sounds like fun already? Come ready for a wild time.

Wild Child Pizzette

Address 50 Circular Road, Singapore 049405 (Google Maps link)
Opening Hours 12pm to 2.30pm and 5.30pm to 10.30pm Mondays to Saturdays; closed on Sundays
Tel (65) 6970 6592 / 8587 5214 (Whatsapp)
Web www.wildchildpizzette.com
Facebook wildchildpizzette
Instagram @wildchildpizzette