From Bondi to Brisbane – Johnny Gio’s has landed in New Farm
A Sydney pizza favourite known for elevating the takeaway experience has officially landed in Brisbane. Johnny Gio’s opened its first Queensland location in New Farm this week, bringing with it a restaurant-level approach to quality. Expect Italian techniques, top-tier ingredients and a menu built for sharing.
Pizza spots can be loosely broken down into two major categories.
There’s the quick-service joints geared towards takeaway and delivery customers, and the restaurant-style operations that cater to a more discerning dine-in clientele. While there are choice spots in each subset, quality can vary between the two, with the latter option typically regarded as the place to find more premium offerings.
With Johnny Gio’s, Jonathan Faro is looking to bridge the gap.
When Jonathan first opened Johnny Gio’s in Bondi back in 2019, he did so with the intent of proving that takeaway pizza could be just as good as the kind found at high-end restaurants.
“I saw a bit of a gap in the market,” Jonathan explains. “There were plenty of good pizza restaurants, but no one was really dominating the premium takeaway delivery pizza market. And when I say premium, I’m talking hand-stretched Italian pizza dough, cooked in a high-temperature brick oven and using real imported products.”
More than half a decade since its debut, Johnny Gio’s has expanded to boast 24 locations across New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. This week, Jonathan increased the total number of outposts to 25 with a brand-new takeaway joint (Queensland’s first) now open at Little Lane in New Farm, just next door to Idle.
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“It was on the cards for quite a while – it’s been over a year in the making to find the right site,” Jonathan reveals. “We really wanted to come into the Brisbane market strongly because we are really impressed with the food scene.”
On opening night, locals turned out in droves to get a slice of Johnny Gio’s goodness. The kitchen was a hive of activity, with a crew of pizzaioli pumping out hundreds of pizzas for the waiting masses. Even though it was the first night of trade, the crew operated like a well-oiled machine, which shouldn’t come as a surprise once you become familiar with the clockwork-like approach Jonathan has instilled across the Johnny Gio’s brand.
“For me, it was also about creating the most efficient and awesome pizza system that I could create,” says Jonathan, who studied engineering before finding himself in hospitality.
“When you’re in a restaurant, you’ve got so many different moving parts that you need to stay on top of. The fact that we are zeroed in on takeaway and delivery allows us to focus on consistency and our quality, ensuring that what we are outputting is the best that we can do.”
It’s a delicate tightrope walk between volume and quality, but Johnny Gio’s manages to navigate between the two by nailing some essential elements. The anchor point of every Johnny Gio’s location is the brick Marana Forni oven, a hulking centre piece with a rotating floor that allows for equal flame distribution (“It’s the soul of the business,” says Jonathan). Though it makes the process of cooking easier than, say, a static oven, it still takes a deft hand to operate.
“When we originally started in our Bondi location, we used a static woodfired oven,” says Jonathan. “In my opinion, it’s the best oven in terms of quality to cook with when it comes to artisan pizza, but when you’re doing high volume, it’s quite a skill to learn how to use.”
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All Johnny Gio’s pizzaioli undergo a three-month training course before they are deemed worthy of the title of ‘oven master’. Once trained, these oven overlords are capable of dishing out 500 pizzas a night.
The next pillar upholding Johnny Gio’s premium ethos is the quality of produce – ingredients that Jonathan vouches for, personally.
“This product is just as good as, if not better than, a lot of the restaurant products, because we’re using Caputo flour, we’re using Mutti pomodoro tomatoes and we’re flying our fior di latte from Napoli,” says Jonathan. “We’ve been to these factories and we’ve seen how our cheeses get made – we’ve picked the best of the best that we can bring into the country.”
So, what’s the end result? A menu filled top to bottom with belters – both traditional and non-traditional pizzas, a couple of pasta dishes, plus a number of sides and desserts.
“Coming from an Italian background, I’ve always been privy to awesome, authentic Italian cooking,” says Jonathan. “All of our cooking techniques are traditional and all of our flavours are authentic, but we get to have a bit of fun.”
The offering leads with Johnny’s Specials, including crowd-favourite options like The Boss (pomodoro, chilli, bell peppers, Italian sausage and salted ricotta), the Sonny Honey (spicy sopressa, red onion, ricotta, basil and hot honey), The Irishman (caramelised onion, potato, spicy salami and gorgonzola) and the Johnny Vodka (vodka sauce, loaded mozzarella, crispy pepperoni and parmesan).
Pasta lovers can opt for a slab of veal-ragu lasagna or a serve of macaroni coated in vodka sauce and four-cheese bechamel. As for sides, no pizza order is complete without garlic bread, but don’t look past the meatballs – we hear they’re an underrated gem. For a sweet finish, there’s also Nutella pizzas, Mars Bar cheesecake and tiramisu.
According to Jonathan, the success of Johnny Gio’s in Brisbane is contingent on building trust. While the brand could be considered an interstate interloper, Jonathan believes that, given a chance, his brand has everything needed to become a local go-to.
“I want people to be able to know that when they see a Johnny Gio’s, they can trust that they’re going to get an awesome pizza,” says Jonathan. “There’s plenty of good pizza restaurants in Brisbane, but the main thing for us is that we really care about the product and we want people to trust that we’re going to bring joy into their household.”
For Johnny Gio’s operating hours and menu details, head to The Directory.