BERWICK is officially the home of Victoria’s best gourmet pizza after local restaurant Pizza e Cucina won the state final of the Best of the Best Pizza Challenge on Sunday.

Pizza e Cucina beat four other restaurants to officially lay claim to Victoria’s best gourmet pizza in the Dairy Farmers Challenge staged at Melbourne’s Good Food and Wine Show.

The Berwick restaurant competed in all three-gourmet categories- cheese, smallgoods and specialty.

Pizza e Cucina owner Lou Maio said his Very Berry Custard Apple Dessert pizza particularly impressed the judges who gave it the nod for best specialty pizza.

“It blew the judges away. It was different to the other competitors who mostly made savoury pizzas,” he said.

Mr Maio said the pizza, which consisted of caramelised apples, blueberries, blackberries and custard, was a slightly modified version of a pizza already on the High Street restaurant’s menu.

Mr Maio said their specialty primavera pizza also received good feedback from the judges.

Mr Maio said business at the restaurant has picked up since last week’s Gazette reported that Pizza e Cucina was one of five restaurants short-listed from 160 for Sunday’s competition.

“On Wednesday we had an increased turnover and Thursday, Friday and Saturday were flat-out as well,” he said.

The restaurant will go on to represent Victoria in the gourmet category at the Best of the Best Pizza Challenge national finals in Sydney.

Mr Maio said he was “absolutely rapt” to make it to Sydney and was already preparing for the September competition.

“We’re concentrating on bringing out new pizzas for September,” he said.

“There’s a new seafood category so we’re racking our brains trying to come up with something for that.”

Mr Maio said he was impressed with the other competitors but always thought his restaurant had a good chance of winning the title.

“We put in a lot of hard work. We were up until 4am on Sunday preparing and at 7am we were up again getting ready,” he said.

“We weren’t there to make up the numbers.”

Mr Maio said he was looking forward to the national titles and hoped he would get the chance to compete at the Las Vegas world championships early next year.