Pizzeria Due Sette in Nishi-ku, Osaka

In continuing service to the city, we add another example to our list of pizza restaurants in Osaka, this time: a review of Pizzeria Due Sette, near Utsubo Park, in Nishi-ku.

From the outside, you will encounter this steel octopus of ductwork, presumably venting his big brick pizza oven (located inside).  The name is Pizzeria Due Sette, which is Italian for “27.” Why “27?” Wakarimasen.

As you approach on the street, you’ll see the mal-formed “27” in flag form – looking as much like “29” (or a child’s drawing of some old socks or a misshapen dinosaur head).

As for the pizza, as we say in Japan, “aru.”

I had heard good things about Osaka’s Due Sette Pizza, and I was eager to give it a try.  It had been a very hard day, and Due Sette was to serve as safe harbor and much-need hospitality.  I did find good pizza, but I took issue with my “host.”

(At least on the night I was there,) the shop felt “tense,” psychologically tight.  I came in with the best intentions, expecting something completely positive. But inside, my mood contracted with each minute inside, and I was soon all too eager to leave.

This review (in it’s current form) is an odd one for me, because I don’t like the pizza master, but I have since warmly remembered the pizza; I am split, in an uncomfortable way.

So it is I begin what feels like an essay of masochism within a dysfunctional gastronomic relationship. The classic case study of the pizza lover in dilemma; to dislike the pizza guy, and yet remain, trapped by the temptation of the slice. It is not “to want what you cannot have,” but, perhaps, to continue to engage with what is not good for you.

In part because the shop is not large, and because he sat me directly on top of his station, we created a hostile kind of shared intimacy. Before it was over, I felt like starting (or finishing?) a fight. The meal was (or is now?) like a pizza shop expression of anxious-attachment; there is an unhealthy codependency, carried by the energy of a blissfully ignorant pizza at play in the center of it all.

The shop is small. While that is alright with me, my first clue something was a little off was that it was also too quiet.  Like a library.  It felt “strict;” like the waiting area outside the office of some disciplinarian at your middle school.  It felt, “cooped up,” tense.

In addition to myself, there was a staid, younger couple in a corner, having some kind of date that apparently didn’t involve any conversation at all. (Strange.) Later, a hakujin guy and his young daughter arrived, they, too, spoke only in thin whispers.  There was some kind of radio playing, but it was even more subdued, a sub-whisper, a faint mumble; the sound seemingly hoarded, provided for the pizza master listening only, and conspicuously unshared with his guests. How rude.

Am I being too creative here? Maybe. But why these images? Where did this inspiration come from? Some muse is he.

I was seated at the tiny counter.  Expecting only the best, I tried to settle in.  I ordered a much-needed beer.

I then began to pour my attention into Due Sette’s pizza menu. While the pizza master conveyed the feeling of a withholding of love, his menu was generous in it’s selection.

Big menu, three pages, divided in three sections; tomato sauce-base pizzas, mozzarella-base pizzas, basil sauce-base pizzas.  Pizza dude also purports to make a calzone.

He handed me a cell phone with an English version of his menu.

I’m happy to struggle along with Japanese menus (and I generally feel tech in restaurants is always a very bad idea), but the simplicity of the cell-solution was fine with me.  No complaints… not yet.

I always like meat on a pizza, and the choices of meat at Due Sette are sparse.  At the time, I only noticed choices that included salami or anchovy.  Having the luxury of more time to peruse the menu (for this review), I have noticed there is also a sausage pizza.

Salsiccia e Broccoli Pizza: Smoked Mozzarella, Homemade Salsiccia, Broccoli
— From the “Mozzarella-base” pizza menu at Due Sette Pizza

And there are too two tuna pizzas on the menu – with, and without, onions.

Tonno e Cipolla Pizza: Mozzarella, Tuna, Onion, Basil, Oregano, Pepper
— From the Due Sette Pizza menu

I have never actually had a good tuna pizza, but I remain foolishly optimistic one could exist.  Most recently, I had the Marinara Tonno Pizza at Osteria Salvatore in Sapporo (crunchy onions and wet, pasty, bland tuna) in Sapporo.  I have tried the Tuna Pizza at Gold Caravan in Nagoya (cracker crust, tasty, but almost not-pizza).  Who knows, perhaps Due Sette is the shop that can get it right?

On the night I was there, I ordered the Popolo:

Popolo Pizza: Tomato Sauce, Mushrooms, Salami, Olives, Cherry Tomatoes, Garlic, Oregano, Basil
— From the pizza menu at Pizzeria Due Sette

Doesn’t that look good?  And, that is a pizza that tastes as good as it looks.

Big, puffy, light crust, and just loaded with toppings. Large avocado-green olives.  Big wafer slices of garlic, burnt black at the edges.  Strips of salami.  Tiny, cartoon, bunashimeji mushrooms.  Torn bits of basil.  Fat wedges of cherry tomatoes. 

Sitting at the counter, I was treated to the view of a hand-made sign providing prompts for “how to eat thin crust pizza;” advising you to roll it up, and to cut it, as if it were a hotdog.

It was a kind of “knife and fork pizza” user’s guide, done in a cutesy, original style. But none of that is necessary, because the truth is, Due Sette’s pizza passes the infamous Pizza Czar “pizza test:”

You can pick this pizza up.  That crust is “thin,” but not too thin.  And it’s tasty, too.

Okay, all that drama in the into, and yet it looks as if we give the pizza high marks. And we do. So, what was the problem?

The gas-lit, victim of the story that I am… I cannot be entirely sure there was a problem. Did I make it up? As I remember, it was the seriously un-fun undercurrent of the pizza guy. The problem was, in my telling, the nature of the pizzaiolo himself.

He was professional, kind of. Not the slightest bit warm, too prickly for his role. He was… annoying. He got on my nerves.

If you know my reviews, you’ll know I think that sitting at the counter, and watching the pizzas being made is one of the best parts of the live, Neapolitan pizza process.  And this guy… I wasn’t trying to chat him up, but I asked if I could take pictures of him making the pizza, he said, “no.” Really? In all my years…

He can do what he wants, of course; it’s his spot. But his kitchen is in the center of the room, he has a counter wrapped around his work station, literally pointing his customers’ faces into his work, and sat me at that counter facing him.  Be private, be an introvert, be a shut-in if it suits you, but maybe don’t try all that with this kind of job.

It was his cold, silent shop.  It was his lack of rapport with me.  He makes a special pizza, but as a host, he’s was rather hard to like.

My experience with that guy brings to mind the high school class struggle; I felt like I was being mogged by some kind of vengeful, uptight, library monitor.  Perhaps you think I am the bully in this story (and in relation to the host, I feel like that may be true), but… I have eaten at nearly 100 pizza restaurants in Japan (that is actually true).  I have interacted with dozens of pizza masters, at every level of pizza.  I’ve written recently about the pizza experts at Pizza Bar on 38th (Tokyo), and even more recently about an incredible experience watching the pizza doms at Regina al Pizzeria in Sydney, Australia (wow, those guys could sling some pies, amazing)…

This was not my first pizza house, Sir. And I, have, never… seen such a cranky, difficult host.

He is also yet another guy in Japan that wraps himself in his little “pizza school.” As you can see, he wants you know he’s an “official” Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani in Giappone guy. It’s there on his shirt, and also on display in the window as you approach the shop. “Ouuu.” Good for you, guy.

APN is a lesser known certification.  All the other (try hard) pizza guys in Japan rep AVPN (Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana).  These two schools are programs whereby Japanese guys can be seen trying to be more “Italian,” and want to be known for making pizza in a sanctioned, pre-approved, regimented way.  In my (rather extensive) experience, seeing the APN/AVPN brand tends to signal a man who wants you to know he’s been “credentialed.” Rather than be known for their own taste or expertise, they go out of their way to signal they can “follow the rules.” Nerds.

Okay, okay, wait… I’m just being mean now.

I will say again; I liked his pizza. But I do read his APN enthusiasm as another sign of some kind of insecurity; of trying to fit in, when you’re not often picked.

I wanted to get pictures of the pizza oven and the front of the cafe, all in one shot.  He (still) has his Covid-era plastic partitions set up between seats at the counter (of course he does, he is that kind of guy).  I leaned one over on it’s side, to get it out of the shot.  As I did that, he scuttled around the bar to put it back up.  I was all by myself at the counter, why is that partition necessary at all?  He couldn’t leave it down for a minute? What is the point of that?

I definitely didn’t like this guy.

It had been a long day and I intended to have two beers. Because he was so uptight, and his place was so uncomfortable, as he did his thing with me and the plastic people protector, I asked for the bill.  I didn’t finish my meal, I was sick of him, and I was taking off.

I collected my things and waited for him at the register. He sensed he had cross some line, and was now trying to communicate with me.  Nah, nah, let’s get this over with; I shot him some daggers, and I pointed at the bill.  He tried to use his phone to translate something, and I blew him off… no back-peddling now, tough guy.

But, but, you know… even as I grated at the experience, I did enjoy that pizza.  That is where the drama lies; like a jilted lover, I am still thinking it over. I think… and I can’t believe I am saying this… I think I’ll even go back. In the immortal words of Vizzini, “Inconceivable.”

See? I feel chafed, I suffer, and yet… I come back again, putting my nose into the grinder.

And we’ll see:  Was it just a bad night for me?  Or from him? I was excited to be there when I walked in, but maybe the day’s exhaustion got the better of me?  Or maybe something about my face reminds him of the guys that used to stuff him the trashcan when he was a kid (that kind of thing can be hard to forget)?

Maybe I’ll go back, and it’ll be better?  Maybe he’ll remember me, and refuse to serve me?  Maybe I’ll hate it again, but will love the pizza, and we’ll continue our abusive relationship, with each savory slice bringing us together, again, into some kind of potentially volatile, perpetual anti-therapy.

I don’t need pizza, I need an intervention.

Beautiful pizza. Tasty. Bad experience.

To be continued… maybe.

For more Osaka Pizza see:

— Don’t miss Critter’s Pizza in Nishishinsaibashi in Chuo-ku
— [A] PIZZA in the Namba/Nipponbashi part of Chuo-ku
— Osaka’s Craft Beer & Pizza Imazato in Higashinari-ku
— Grab a slice at Hughes Pizza in the Nakazakinishi part of Kita-ku
— Pizzeria da Dots in Taisho-ku, Osaka
— Henry’s Pizza in Chuo-ku
— Pizza Bar Full House in Chuo-ku, Osaka
— The Goofy’s Pizza in Kita-ku
— That’s Pizza in Minamihorie/Nishi-ku
— Drunk Bears Nu Pizza in Chayamachi Kita-ku
— Pizzeria da Tigre in Nishi-ku
— Dal Donnaiolo Pizza in Kita-ku (Nishitenma)
— La Pizzeria da Napoletana Regalo