If the old wives’ tale that eating crusts makes your hair curly were true, Footscray would be home to a fair few Shirley Temples. No one here is sending these blistered, chewy, puffy edges back to the kitchen.

Toppings are deliciously simple: margherita is sweet with tomatoes of summers past and bucket-loads of basil, while charred flatbread is pungent with garlic, practically born to wrap around fat, cumin-scented lamb meatballs in sugo.

Outside, crowds sit at picnic tables under festoon lights, ordering easy-drinking skin-contact wines and quirky Garage Project beers by QR code, while those waiting in the takeaway queue might break into an impromptu game of handball.

Table service in the blondwood dining room makes things only marginally more formal. Pro-tip: the ’nduja-stuffed fried olives are a salty-spicy hit worth granting some of your stomach’s assigned pizza space.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.