Pizza Boutique: Jakarta, West Java

For pizza aficionados in Jakarta, here is another pizzeria to serve your hungry appetite. Pizza Boutique in South Jakarta offers you more than enough choice of pizza with various toppings from vegetarian or seafood to meaty kinds, and even honey and chocolate.

“It’s all about pizza here,” said Florine, the restaurant’s owner, explaining that in Pizza Boutique customers can choose from among 45 varieties.

“We want to introduce the concept of pizza gourmet. Customers can have it all from starters, main courses and dessert, all of good quality,” she said recently.

She said the restaurant was opened three months ago, inspired by her favorite pizzeria, Little Caesar, in Mundaring suburb, about 45-minute’s drive from Perth, Western Australia.

“It was my favorite place to eat on the weekend. The pizza is good and the atmosphere favorable,” she said about Little Caesar, a small pizzeria owned and run by Greek Australian chef Theo Kalogeracos, who was awarded the title World’s Best Pizza Chef 2004-2006 in New York and Las Vegas.

Florine spent a year learning about everything, including how to make good pizza, directly from the chef himself. She thought she needed it to make sure about the quality of the food because “In the end, it’s the food that makes customers come back.”

Chef Kalogeracos also creates the menu and supervises the resto regularly to maintain its quality.

Talking about quality, Florine explained that her pizza was made for health-conscious people. The dough balls are oil-free, which guarantees freshness as they will last for a maximum of 24 hours.

The Post tried house specialty chicken fettucine when visiting the place recently and was quite surprised at the rich creamy topping and combination of chicken and beef bacon.

Yummy, but more Parmesan cheese was needed to make it a bit saltier.

A friend who has tried the house favorites White Rock Roast and some dessert pizzas also said that the resto needed to make the pie thinner and crispier.

“I would rather have it tastier and thinner (as in Pizza Marzano or Izzi Pizza), although I don’t have problem with the rich topping here. And I expected a better taste at that price,” she said.

Florine, however, said she was optimistic about business prospects because her pizza was made for “food-literate people” who did not mind about price as a trade-off for good quality.
Another suggestion is that the pizza should be offered in several size options.

Currently, they are only available at a size of 25 centimeters (and cut into six slices), which is too much for many local people, especially if you eat alone.

For those who like to taste a bit of everything, it would be better to have a smaller size available, even if people dine with some friends.

Florine said that, currently, she is focusing on a marketing promotion to grab more visitors, such as offering a package menu and cooperating with credit card issuers to provide a special discount of up to 30 percent.

“We have a special package menu for two and four people within the price range Rp 52,000 (US$5.78) to Rp 128,000,” she said, adding that the cheapest package includes a portion of pizza mini roll for starters (don’t worry — it consists of seven small pizzas!), one pizza margherita, and two glasses of ice tea.

For Rp 128,000, says Florine, customers will get a portion of mini roll, one tuna Mornay pizza, a choice of either one boutique chicken or chicken aloha, and four glasses of ice tea.

For those who are not really into pizza, the place can still be an option for a casual business meeting as it is not packed with people, easy to access from Sudirman and SCBD area, and also provides free wi-fi Internet access.

Pizza Boutique
Jl. Soeryo No. 20
Kebayoran Baru,
South Jakarta
tel: 7279 0283
open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. (Sundays to Thursdays)
10 a.m. to 11 p.m. (Fridays and Saturdays)
Delivery (Kebayoran Baru and SCBD area only), tel: 722 9202

Agustina Wayansari