Outside the box

Pizza e Birra pizzas are now available via online ordering and home delivery. Formerly owned by Mauro Marcucci - the Melbourne boy who started out at Caffe e Cucina in the 1990s and has since opened and sold Italian eateries in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane - Pizza e Birra has been bought by Emil Parthenides, who is a director of the Better Box Company and behind 131 Pizza, a home-delivery service based at South Yarra's Gallery pizzeria.

Home delivery operates in the St Kilda pizzeria's neighbourhood, and Parthenides says it's ''the fastest- growing aspect of our business''. He is looking for more locations ''to implement our new exciting concept around the Pizza e Birra brand''. The sale means Marcucci will leave the Melbourne market to focus his interests in Sydney, with Baccomatto Osteria in Surry Hills and Enopizzeria in Neutral Bay.

Source: Good Food, 9 July 2013