Neighboring Toasted, Jeddah’s latest Pizzeria — Pizza Fusion has quietly opened its doors in the Rawdah Star shopping Plaza (it’s just off Rawdah Street). The opening is a soft launch, which means they are testing the waters, and have not yet announced their official opening.
Due to the soft opening, a few things aren’t yet available; for example delivery is not yet up and running (but should be up by next week we’re now told). As for the company, it’s another American import, Pizza Fusion was established in 2006 in Florida, and now has over 21 branches across America.
They are unique due to their firm stance on healthy eating, organic ingredients, and fresh produce. In America they also offset their power restaurant consumption through environmentally sustainable building practices, purchasing carbon credits and using hybrid electrical vehicles on deliveries. It will be interesting to see if those hybrid vehicles are also eventually used here in Jeddah!
When we dropped by a few people were already ordering takeouts from the printed menus on the counter. The interior projects a very natural theme, befitting its organic and eco friendly image, so fresh tones of deep tomato red, and olive green plaster the walls, along with some quirky illustrations of wind turbines set across green hills. Suspended lights hang over the bar in the bachelor’s area, while an open plan kitchen shows Pizza Fusion have nothing to hide, and if you’re eating downstairs the scenes in the kitchen provides a good show while you wait. The whole setup is immaculate.
A quick look back at the menu and it immediately dawned on us that Pizza Fusion was different from other pizzerias in Jeddah. For a start the menu doesn’t hold back, with confident statements claiming: “You are about to eat the freshest veggies, tastiest 100% certified organic tomato sauce, the juiciest hormone-free meats, and crispiest hand-stretched all natural dough!”
Signs across the wall declare the ingredients gluten free. Great, but it can’t be all organic right? Here in Jeddah? A quick question to the manager revealed this was the case, he was very open about this, telling us how the cheese, tomato sauce and pizza base is organic (it’s imported), but due to local constraints and the need for fresh vegetables on the pizza, not everything can be organic here (yet). Still it’s an excellent start in the right direction, and perhaps local suppliers and farmers will take note!
Moving on to the food, the menu here is quite elaborate, and there is a great variety and number of toppings one can add to the pizzas.
To start you’re encouraged to choose the size (personal, 15 SR, large 25 SR or family 30 SR) then select the type of base you’re after, so its either original organic white, or multigrain; finally you choose your sauce, with choices of organic tomato, pesto and BBQ sauce.
As for the pizzas, the usual suspects like pepperoni and traditional cheese are available, but the curious sounding “Big Kahuna” caught our attention, as did the spinach and artichoke, BBQ chicken, and sausage and tricolor pepper pizzas.
Not wanting to leave anything out, we also decided to try a few starters, ordering the flat bread and olive dip (12 SR) along with a chicken Bruschetta, and pear and Gorgonzola salad. As for desserts we asked for the only item on the menu (the home-made chocolate chip cookies) but alas these were not available.
The waiting time was about 15-20 minutes, longer than usual, but to be fair the menu clearly states “this ain’t fast food” and to “please allow fifteen minutes for all orders.”
As for the taste test, the pizza overall was very good. We preferred the multigrain over the white base, and particularly enjoyed the big Kahuna (This was a Hawaiian pizza with crispy beef bacon and organic pineapple! The combination for the uninitiated is delicious, and tasted even better on the multigrain crust), a firm favorite of the lot!
It’s worth noting the pizzas here are not at all oily, (the base verging on dry), and overall very healthy (depending how carried away you get with the toppings!). For a guilt free ‘post pizza’ experience try the personal size pizza, with a multigrain base.
Our spinach and artichoke pizza was very good, with fresh spinach and juicy artichoke hearts, the BBQ chicken however was a little too saucy for our liking. The sausage pizza was the least impressive, nothing particularly special about it.
The salads were more of a let down, boxed for takeout in plastic containers, the cheesy gorgonzola dressing had soaked through the romaine lettuce, resulting in a soggy mix on arrival at home. The chicken Bruschetta salad was also in a similar state. Having the cheese dressing on the side would quickly solve this though. In contrast the flat bread received no complaints, soft and fresh the bread went well with the side dip of olive tapenade.
Pasta dishes and sandwiches are also available, we may have to drop back for those, but based on what we tried we think Pizza Fusion are certainly on to a good thing, we’ll certainly be back for the Big Kahuna!
Location: Rawdah Star Complex,
Tel: 02 261 6933
Opening Hours: 1:00 pm to 11:00 pm
Website: www.pizzafusion.com
