Francoise Pizza Mediterranean Cuisine

Dining at this restaurant is a wonderful experience. Francoise and his family are wonderful hosts and the food is sensational he handpicks his ingredients and takes a lot of pride in what he plates up. We have been going there for several years and have loved it on every occasion. The dips are to die for and so are his pizzas!

Old people's pizza. I have no complaints with the quality of Francoise's pizza. My beef is the prices. I stopped in for a small capricciosa and a glass of house red wine. The pizza was good, with tonnes of anchovies, mushrooms and black olives. I like spicy flavours, and I got into the habit of ordering pungent pizzas years ago because when we'd have a batch at places where I worked, people would leave mine alone if it had toppings like salty, oily fish. The crust has a crisp bottom layer, it's crackery at the outer edges, but has a bit of white flour sponginess where it interfaces with the sauce. All in all, as good as anything I've had on Lygon Street.<br/ <br/ The problem is, this small pizza maybe 20 cm across cost me $15. Medium pizzas start at $20. A glass of the un named house shiraz, which had some good fruit to it, was $9. There was no price on the table tent spruiking it, or I wouldn't have ordered something so costly. House wine ought to be more like $5 or $6, IMHO. This place attracts a grey haired, Hawksburn rich clientele, based on what I saw when I was there, so the pricing seems to be set at their level.<br/ <br/ What was more interesting than the pizzas were the puffy white objects I saw coming out on plates. When the owner stopped by my table, I asked him what they were. Turns out Francoise bakes its own pitas, and they look like pillows when they come out of the oven. They have a number of Turkish type dishes such as dips and kebabs that go along with the pitas. But again, the kebab plate costs $30. Obviously not aiming at the late night, half drunk kebab crowd with that.

Fantastic pizza! Gnocchi and steak to die for!!! Definitely will be coming back!

Italian-Aussie Compromise. This is not your crappy cheap and nasty Pizza. But it's also not your authentic wood fired oven pizza. What this is is a wonderful compromise between the two. Ingredients you can see and taste that'll have you coming back. I usually get mine take-away and numerous friends always request we get a Francoise Pizza before sitting down to watch the game on TV. That speaks for itself. Ask for garlic and chili as extra toppings. Yum!

Great pizzas! Have become a weekly regular at this place and have to say I plan to continue!