Perth pizza: Hero's Pizza North Perth and Crust Gourmet Pizza Subiaco

When Mr Bite and I were dating but not living together, we settled into a routine around when we saw each other and what sorts of things we did.

(Yes, even back then we were like an old married couple.)

In a standard week, we saw each other on Tuesday night, Friday night, and Saturday day and night through to Sunday morning, at which point we parted ways until Tuesday rolled around again.

Because I lived by myself and Mr B did not, we generally met at my place. This meant we were eating dinner at my (now our) house up to three nights per week. So that I didn't have to cook on each of those nights, we established a routine quite early on that saw us eat out or order take-away at least one night per week.

Hero's Pizza - The Vegetator

Favourites were Thai, Japanese, fish, and one particular pizza place not far from us, Hero's Pizza. Hero's Pizza markets themselves as making "fresher, healthier, tastier pizza" and we tended to agree with their claims. They also go easy on the cheese, which makes me happy.

When we moved in together, we gradually moved away from restaurant and take-away food and these days we mostly eat at home. Generally I don't mind that, and even prefer it, although Thai a bit more often would be nice too!

Hero's Pizza was retained as a take-away treat around Mr Bite's birthday, but then the store nearest to us closed down. In one of those amusing twists of fate, the store shut because the lease expired and wasn't renewed. The new tenants? A Curves fitness centre. I still smile when I drive past.

In the lead up to Mr Bite's birthday this year, we thought we would try an alternative local pizza place, Crust Gourmet Pizza, in case they could fill Hero's shoes. I can tell you the exact date we visited - the 18th March 2012 - because Johanna helpfully reviewed Crust Pizza on Green Gourmet Giraffe the very day we had planned to go. Her review showed the pesto aioli that comes drizzled on top of the Vegetarian Supreme pizza, allowing us to know to steer clear of that.

Crust has several stores in Perth, two of which are relatively close to us. There are six vegetarian pizzas to choose from, plus a vegetarian calzone, which is quite an impressive range. It's also possible to design your own pizza, a concept that appeals to me greatly. When we visited, though, we decided to order off the menu for our first try. Usually when we order pizza for just the two of us, we get one large to share and I pair my pieces with salad, so customised pizzas would have required half-and-half ordering and it started to get messy.

Our choice? The Vegetarian Supreme minus the pesto aioli!

Crust Gourmet Pizza - Vegetarian Supreme

This comes with eggplant, artichokes, baby spinach, capsicum, mushrooms and sundried tomatoes on a tomato base. In standard form it also includes the pesto aioli and two types of cheese, which seems rather excessive. We asked for no aioli and no bocconcini, which left mozzarella for Mr Bite to eat and me to pick off.

Unfortunately, I think we would have been better ordering our own pizzas and/or customising things to our own tastes, even if it meant purchasing two pizzas instead of one. We both found this version a bit lacking, and wondered if the seasonings and flavours had been in the pesto aioli that we omitted - certainly without it, there wasn't a lot of flavour and we weren't able to identify any herbs in taste or appearance. It was also too cheesey for both of us, and by the time I tried to remove most of the cheese from my pieces I had removed most of the vegetables too.

In the end, not a resounding success. I would like to try Crust again with either a customised (and cheese-free!) pizza or with their 'Healthier Choice' baby spinach pizza minus cheese, but for now we are giving them a bit of a break.

For Mr Bite's birthday, we weren't taking any risks and drove the extra distance to another Hero's Pizza store in Perth. We ordered three vegetarian varieties, as we had Mr Bite's family over to help us eat them:

• The Vegetator (tomato base, onions mushrooms, tomatoes, olives, capsicum, basil, mozzarella)
• The Snow Meat (tomato base, roast pumpkin, artichoke, eggplant, capsicum, cream cheese, sesame seeds, basil)
• The Avegers (avocado base, semi-dried tomatoes, roast pumpkin, mushroom, feta cheese, mozzarella, pepper)

The Vegetator is my favourite and I have also tried The Snow Meat before. The Avegers was a new variety that proved to be a hit with Mr B and his family, but I didn't try it as my odd tastes mean that I don't like avocado outside of desserts. 

The thing about all of the flavour varieties (in addition to their names being a little on the creative side!) is that they taste fresh. So many take-away pizzas taste oily or bland, but here there are plenty of vegetables and plenty of seasonings.

The Vegetator

The Snow Meat

The Avegers

There's also not too much cheese.

For now, I think we'll be sticking with Hero's Pizza on the rare occasions we venture into take-away. Crust deserves another try, but it may take a little while for the opportunity to arise.

We visited Crust Gourmet Pizza in Subiaco and Hero's Pizza in North Perth. Crust has stores Australia-wide whilst Hero's is Western Australia specific at this stage.


How often do you order take-away? And do you have a reliable pizza option?

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