Pizza Randale

Review

They called him Margarita

Photo: Heribert Corn He comes from Berlin, explains Nikolai Kölbl, and the battle cry at the parties of his youth would have been "riot". So the Minister of the Interior can withdraw the troops again, which is not a call for civil disobedience, but an expression of joy and exuberance. Kölbl, who started as a chef in the Weinschenke seven years ago, then became a partner there, changed the menu to high-end burgers, opened a second restaurant on Karmelitermarkt two years ago, a third on Siebensternplatz this spring and before that a Toasteria on Praterstraße, says that he has long had pizza in his sights. Whether you believe him or not, the concept of Pizza Randale, which was soft-launched in the past few weeks, certainly looks well thought out and by no means like a gastronomic hip shot: The pizza oven is gas-fired and is one of the best of its kind thanks to a special hot air swirl; the furniture was made from steel and old wood from a collection that Kölbl was able to get hold of; the huge portrait of Bud Spencer - like Gérard Depardieu in Weinschenke I and Marlon Brando/Vito Corleone in Weinschenke II - is by Sarah Gruber.
And then Kölbl was also able to bring Carmine Cilentro into the team, a young man with an increasingly magnificent beard from Battipaglia, who in recent years has made good pizzas wherever they were in demand, at Pizza Mari', La Delizia, Pizza Posto 22 and Kitch.
And with whom Nikolai Kölbl finally sat down to take a fresh approach to pizza, just as he did with burgers and toast: "Spencer" pizza, for example, with Black Angus roast beef, yellow and red tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, rocket and lemon oil; or "Alba" with smoked provola cheese, brown mushrooms, truffle oil, walnuts, wild boar salsiccia and basil; or "Viennese blood" with tomato sauce, provola, black pudding, apple and marjoram, "although it's not that easy to convince an Italian to put non-Italian ingredients on a pizza".
This wasn't the case with the "Bud" anyway, tomato sauce, mozzarella, wild boar salsiccia, pancetta and cime di rapa formed an extremely beautiful - albeit not classic - Italian harmony, definitely a great pizza (€ 13.90). What can you say? This is fun pizza with fine ingredients in combination with a place that somehow still looks a bit like the old club cave Transporter, good beer and a few decent wines - it's hard to believe, but there might actually have been a niche, Pizza Randale was indeed still missing. Summary: A hip creative pizzeria and the former underground club Transporter form an amazingly harmonious symbiosis here. Pizza Randale 5th, Kettenbrückeng. 1 Tel. 0650/855 07 72 Sun-Wed 16-1, Thu-Sat 16-4

More in Italian
Food & Drink in Vienna