Tiamo/Tiamo 2 (we had pizza, which comes from Tiamo 2’s pizza oven)
305 Lygon Street
Carlton
Web: http://www.tiamo.com.au/ (it’s not very informative)
BYO: You could, but they also serve wine by the carafe, which is pretty cool.
A date night after work one week went something like this.
Mr Behemoth: “where would you like to go for date night?”
Catty: “How do you feel about pizza?”
Mr B: “Are you joking?”
Pizza is one of Mr B’s all time favourite foods and I think he was a little surprised that I suggested it. I don’t know why because I love it as well. I’ve been wanting to check out DOC Mozzarella and Pizza Bar in Carlton for some time, so we walked up from the city to be greeted with a line. The place was packed. Mr B doesn’t enjoy waiting around for his food, so although my heart said “stay, stay in line! It will only be 20 minutes, probably!”, my mouth opened and I said “let’s go over to Tiamo, that’s pretty good.”
I used to head into Tiamo a fair bit when I was at uni up this way: cheeky Italian waiters and moderately priced pasta and pizza made it a bit of a magnet. There’s so much crap along Lygon Street but Tiamo (and its sibling next door, Tiamo 2) seems to constantly deliver.
We ordered pizza (of course) since that was why we’d come up to Carlton, and also garlic bread, because we are pigs. The quality of the photos isn’t great. Tiamo is a busy restaurant with an incongruously romantic dark atmosphere and we were seated upstairs. I must say, this is the first time my photos have had anything done to them on the blog: they were so dark you couldn’t see anything so I begged my friend who works in graphics to spend five minutes lightening them. Nonetheless even after her work I can assure you the food looked better than this!
Garlicky salty crunchy goodness
I couldn’t go past one of the special pizzas. Figs were in season and I was going to make the most of them. Fig and prosciutto pizza had thin sweet slices of fig laid on to the very good pizza base, and lashings of prosciutto laid on top in order to get a little crispy in the oven. It was very good.
Special pizza (but not happy pizza, because that's illegal in Australia)
Mr B ordered a pizza too: the salami one with capsicum, olives, mozzarella. Unfortunately I do not remember what else was on his (other than the obvious ingredients shown in the photo below and I didn’t get a taste because he wolfed it down. The crust, once again, was thin and crispy and chewy – my favourite type of pizza crust.
Salami was the key ingredient here.
You can be sitting in Tiamo and ordering pizzas from Tiamo 2, and I’d strongly recommend that option – the pizzas we had were great. There are mixed reviews of this place on Urbanspoon, but it’s Italian cheap eats – it’s never going to be Grossi Florentino or one of those high end restaurants. It’s a really good option when you are stuck for choices, and perhaps seeing a movie at Cinema Nova a little further down Lygon Street, or La Mama theatre, and want a pre-show meal. Or your boyfriend refuses to wait in the queue for DOC – have to come back another time to sate that craving!
Other bloggers and their thoughts on Tiamo/Tiamo 2: Miss Adriennely reckons the pizza crusts are great too; Gastrology found the food average but the service good (didn’t order the pizza, though); and Eat, Drink, Stagger reminisced about Melbourne Uni days (as did I) while enjoying a chicken pasta and the aforementioned garlic bread.
Fresh Bread 