Hot Honey Havoc: the Pizzino that started a small obsession
Italian mozzarella, pecorino romano, and our own fermented hot honey on a 72-hour Pizzino base. Sweet, salty, sharp, hot — in the order you taste them. The mortadella upgrade isn't optional, it's recommended.
Before we talk about the honey: a word about the Pizzino.
A Pizzino ("little pizza" in Italian) is not a pizza. It's not a focaccia. It's a thing of its own — a small, oval, hand-stretched flatbread we ferment for 72 hours, top sparingly, and fire hard for 90 seconds in the same wood oven that does our Ozzos. The result is bread that's crisp at the edge, pillowy in the middle, and blistered on the bottom in a way that makes you want to flip it over and look at the crust.
You can hold it in one hand. You can finish it in eight bites. It is the most underrated thing on our menu, and the Hot Honey Havoc is the version we'd order if we walked in here without knowing the menu.
Why hot honey
Hot honey on pizza is having its moment. It's also been on the menu at a particular Brooklyn pizzeria since 2003, so the moment has been going for over twenty years. We're late.
But "late" gave us an advantage: we got to look at how everyone else does it and decide what to do differently.
Most hot honey on pizza in Sydney is honey with a few drops of chilli oil drizzled on at the pass. That's fine. It's not what we wanted to make.
Our hot honey is fermented. We blend wildflower honey from a beekeeper in the Blue Mountains with fresh red chillies from Marrickville produce markets, then leave the mix in a sealed jar at room temperature for three weeks. The chillies infuse slowly. The honey takes on a bit of microbial complexity. You get warmth and bloom and the slight tang that fermentation always carries.
Drizzled across hot, melted cheese, it does something a drizzle of plain honey-with-chilli-oil never will: it tastes like it belongs.
The cheese decision
Two cheeses, on purpose.
Italian mozzarella (fior di latte). Cow's milk mozzarella, low moisture, melts in pulls rather than puddles. It's the structural cheese — it holds the Pizzino together when you fold it.
Pecorino Romano, shaved on after the bake. Salty, sharp, aged sheep's milk. It does what Parmigiano does, but harder. The crystals on a good Pecorino Romano are little salt-bomb punctuation marks.
If we used only mozzarella, the Pizzino would be mild. If we used only Pecorino, it would be aggressive. Together they cover the whole range — mild base for the cheese, sharp pop on top — and they let the honey play in the middle.
The bake
The Pizzino base is brushed with a tiny amount of olive oil, then the mozzarella is torn (not sliced — tearing leaves rough edges that catch more flavour), then a small handful of fresh thyme.
Into the wood oven. 90 seconds at 380°C. The cheese melts. The edges blacken in spots. The bottom blisters.
Out of the oven. Pecorino shaved generously. Hot honey drizzled in a zig-zag.
Served immediately. The Pizzino is only itself for the first four minutes after the honey lands.
The mortadella upgrade
For an extra $3, we'll add LP mortadella — the same wafer-thin Italian mortadella that goes on the Mayhem Again Ozzo.
This isn't an upsell. This is the version we eat at staff meal.
Hot honey + cheese + mortadella is one of the great flavour combinations of modern Italian cooking. The salt of the mortadella, the cured pork fat, the cream of the cheese, the sweet of the honey, the heat in the back of your throat — it builds a chord that resolves perfectly across each bite.
If you're ordering the Hot Honey Havoc for the first time and you eat pork: order it with mortadella. We're not being cute, it's just better.
The vegan version
Vegan Pizzino: we swap the fior di latte for a house-cultured cashew mozzarella that one of our team developed during a quiet week last year. We swap the Pecorino for a salt-fermented almond crumble that adds the same crystalline bite. The hot honey is naturally vegan (no animal products — we know, "honey isn't vegan" is a debate; we go with the bee-positive definition that includes ethically-harvested honey, and we use a producer who keeps bees ethically). If you're a strict no-animal-products vegan, ask about the maple-and-chilli alternative; it's not the same, but it's good.
What it costs and where to eat it
$17 for the Hot Honey Havoc. +$3 for the mortadella upgrade. $20 for what we think is the second-best lunch you'll have this month, after the Marzano.
Both Pyrmont and Marrickville.
Eat it immediately. Pizzinos do not travel. If you order one for pickup, walk the long way home so you eat it on the corner like a New Yorker eats a slice. Standing is a feature of how Pizzinos are designed to be eaten.
Why we put it on
Because the Pizzino is the most fun thing we make, and the Hot Honey Havoc is the most fun Pizzino we make.
The brief for this one was simple: build a thing that makes people smile when they order it and grin when they bite into it. No deep tradition. No nine-step culinary philosophy. Just sweet + salty + sharp + hot, in the order your tongue can map, on bread that earned its place.
It's a Pizzino. It costs $17. It will probably ruin your appetite for the boring lunch you would have ordered otherwise.
That's exactly the havoc we were aiming for.
The Pizzino base is the same 72-hour dough we use for our Ozzo. Read the bread story →
Order at Pyrmont or Marrickville →
