It was love at first slice for business partners and close friends Nick Perchard-Rees and Tim Evans with their new venture Pizza Projekt.
The idea for St Helier’s newest pizza outlet stemmed from the pair’s passion for classic Italian pizza, good customer service and their love of the 1980s.
The pop-up café that Nick and Tim erected in St Helier over the Christmas period proved popular with Islanders and the experience proved so successful that they decided to take it forward by opening in a permanent location. The result is Pizza Projekt, which they say aims to enable Islanders to enjoy artisan pizza anywhere – an ethos that continues to inspire Nick and Tim’s private catering business. The 1980s-inspired logo, which features video game favourite Pac-Man, reflects their love of popular arcade games and has been chosen to create a sense of nostalgia.
The newly developed kitchen at Pizza Projekt has increased dough production in order to provide for not only the café, but also the many outside events that Nick and Tim cater for, from weddings and birthdays to bar mitzvahs and big events such as the Craft Beer Festival and Street Life Festival.
Sustainability was a key word for Nick and Tim as they developed their new project. To this end, they are using smaller napkins and wooden platters to serve food, which means the waste produced can be reduced. They have also invested in vegware straws and miniature jam jars for their sauces in order to avoid using plastic sachets.
The Pizza Projekt menu, meanwhile, is mainly vegetarian which means it is extremely easy for Nick and Tim to adapt to the dietary or lifestyle requirements of customers.
At the pop-up café, Nick explained how he created the marinara, which he describes as ‘a vegan pizza without really trying to be vegan’. Luckily for the vegans of Jersey, the Pizza Projekt team have found a good quality vegan cheese that is an imitation mozzarella which keeps the stringy, melty texture of standard pizzas.
‘The most important ingredient in our pizza dough is time,’ says self-professed ‘pizza geek’ Nick.
In addition, all of the pizzas are made from gluten-free bases and tomatoes sourced from a specific region in Italy and which are known for their distinct natural sweetness.
I asked Nick which pizza he would recommend to a pizza novice, to which he replied: ‘Margherita is the most classic Italian pizza there is and everything on that pizza is as they would do it in Naples, right down to the flour we use, the tomatoes we use, absolutely everything. To me, that is the benchmark pizza. If you visit a pizzeria or restaurant and it is not a good margherita then don’t eat pizza there again.’
The most popular choice of pizza, however, is the nduja, which is a margherita with spicy Calabrian sausage. From the specials, the carbonara has proven a popular favourite among pizza-lovers, although Nick and Tim say this changes on an almost daily basis.
The welcoming, inclusive and relaxed approach of Pizza Projekt allows customers to create their own pizzas, with any substitutions or additions allowed, as long as the required ingredients are available.
The pizzas are designed to be the perfect lunchtime treat for hungry workers with only a limited amount of time. The Pizza Projekt team aim to be as efficient as possible – after all, pizza is fast food – and so at lunchtime a ‘pizza stacker’ is used, which allows Nick and Tim to place up to 19 pizza bases ready for the rush.
It is, they say, a fine balance between making sure they stick to their business principles – such as hand-stretching the dough, pruning it for 24 to 48 hours and making everything homemade – along with providing a quick service for those with a busy schedule.
While travelling around Italy, Nick and his wife noticed one thing that stood out above everything with Italian restaurants – their family values. This is something Nick and Tim have sought to replicate here in Jersey. They explained how – on the day I visited – both a family with a newborn and an elderly couple had stopped by at lunchtime, as well as everyone else in between.
‘Children love the super-cheesy garlic bread, as well as the chalkboard and arcade machines,’ says Nick, ‘while adults can enjoy the classic 1980s-era music, teas and coffees and authentic Italian pizzas.’
As for the future, Nick and Tim plan to introduce pop-up events that span over a weekend and include DJs, arcade games and, of course, delicious pizza. They also hope to expand their private hire scheme to include children’s parties and pizza-making events to be hosted at Pizza Projekt.
‘Our aim is to create a fun vibe,’ says Nick.
Pizza Projekt is certainly something different to Jersey, with Nick and Tim’s personalities painted all over the walls, into the furniture, through their customer service and even into their pizzas.
- Pizza Projekt is in Market Street. Opening times: Monday to Wednesday 11 am – 3 pm, Thursday to Saturday 11 am – 9 pm.
