Moor's Head South

That maverick Moor's Head has done what most of us Melburnians rebuff and crossed the river - bringing its deliciously "inauthentic pizza" to Elsternwick.

The original Moor's Head opened in a loft-style space, with an off-High-Street side entrance, in Thornbury, late 2011. It's still holding its own among a clutch of Italian pizza restaurants that are mobbed most nights.

Moor's Head makes Middle Eastern-inspired pizzas (manoushe) and pides (canoe-shaped pastries). Like Italian pizzas, they're sized to share: served on a wooden board and with a pizza wheel - for some free-wheeling DIY slicing. Unlike Italian pizzas, the base may be smeared with thyme-and-sesame paste (zaatar), baked, and then topped with a gutsy salad of rocket, mint and parsley, tart soused onions, fresh tomato, kalamata olives and dabs of creamy labna; behold the Beiruti.

Pides are turned up at the edges to encase a base of chilli-and-garlic-spiked tomato that's scattered with chopped prawn, cooked and then topped with fresh coriander. Or, there's the judiciously rich Istanbuli, made with baharat (cinnamon, nutmeg and clove) spiced sweet-roasted pumpkin pieces in tahini yoghurt and caramelised onion, topped with fresh parsley and dukkah.

From North to South, Moor's Head's pizza menu is the same. But southsiders get more Moor's Head. Elsternwick opens for dinner and lunch when a changing range of salads and braises are offered as well as pizzas. You could choose a single serve of chickpeas in cardamom-scented tomatoes, or roasted zucchini with tahini yoghurt and pita chips. But a mixed plate of two or three dishes is best. It makes a bright, robust lunch, especially if you add advieh (11 herbs and spices, including dried rose, golpar and cardamom) spiced chicken braised with sour barberries.

Moor's Head South's long, elegantly spare, white-walled room has shiny lacquered concrete floors, an open pizza kitchen and about 40 black bentwood seats. It's a masculine space. There are no cushions, no flowers, and no wall adornments - except the wall of stacked beer cans, and the mural depicting how to make arak (aniseed liqueur). But it's purposeful larrikinism. The arak mural references the name for part of an arak still, called a moor's head.

The Moor's Head boys - Joseph Abboud (of Rumi fame), John Farha and David Figliomeni - also like to pickle. Jars of house-made pickled veg are for sale among select imported goods.

This is not your average pizza joint; there's nothing average about it.

Cuisine Lebanese pizzeria

Do … Consider the five-course banquet for $30.

Don't … Tolerate gluten? Gluten-free available.

Dish … Beiruti manoushe.

Vibe … Polished and handsome.

The Age Good Food Under $30 is available at selected bookshops and newsagents and online at theageshop.com.au for $9.99.