O’Hara, a place where magic happens

O’Hara is not your typical Croatian pizza place, a place where abundance of mediocre to bad ingredients is piled up on a not so special pizza crust, a place where the only important thing is to have a bunch of cheese and smelly ham forming an amorphic mass that doesn’t look oh so appetizing… O’Hara is one of the rare places trying to reach the Italian ideal when it comes to pizza.

For O’Hara’s team, pizza is a philosophy! Philosophy with a lot effort, passion, love, money, travelling, exploring, learning and time invested into it. When you go there, you can be sure to get pure love on your plate topped with quality ingredients bursting with flavors. Till now their menu was based on the Roman style pizza (Pizza Romana), a pizza with a thinner crust, usually with a subtle crispiness to it. But a couple of days ago they introduced a new type of pizza: the original Pizza Napoletana (Neapolitan pizza). Pizza Napoletana has a specific pizza crust made of dough with different times of fermentation, yeast and liquid ratios and a typical freckled pattern. Irresistible black freckles on the edges of the pizza crust are a result of tiny bubbles of air puffing up on the surface during baking on high temperatures in a wooden oven giving the pizza a nice smoky flavor. Due to higher hydration of the dough, pizza crust becomes airy, soft and moist, just delicious. O’Hara pizzas are usually topped with quality Italian ingredients, but they also love to play with Croatian quality products such as kulen, a Croatian type of spicy salami, Istrian truffles, pancetta, sausages and salami made from Black Slavonian Pig, etc.

One thing is for sure, it is a ‘must visit’ for a real pizza experience! Now, I’m gonna stop talking and let the photos speak for themselves! Enjoy!

O’Hara team in action.

Pizza Napoletana with different types of cheese.

Basil, an indispensable part of a true Italian pizza, can be topped fresh after baking or before baking to release its flavors. Just bear in mind that pizza in a wooden oven is usually baked for only 2 minutes or less. Baking fresh basil for a longer period of time can result in a burnt flavor.

O’Hara, where wooden oven magic happens!

Margherita, according to a legend, was the first pizza, created in Naples for queen Margherita, topped with tomatoes, mozzarella and fresh basil to match the colors of the Italian flag.

Fior di latte, a perfect, creamy, simple and pure milk gelato, a staple of every real Italian gelateria and a proof of its quality.

Oh, the olives!!

Mirko Šebalj, a pizza master with magic hands trained in Italy.

A few quality ingredients and a pizza crust handled with care are the core of a real Italian pizza.

A drizzle of olive oil…

Cherry tomatoes…

Marin Vanjak, the owner and the mind behind O’Hara.

Pizza Napoletana has a typical freckled pattern.

Method of trial and error.

Pizza Napoletana with a famous Croatian product: kulen.

Can you overdose on pizza?

A sandwich prepared in a wooden oven.

Panino Italiano, a sandwich prepared with baked pizza dough, stuffed and baked again till crispy.

Airy, bubbly, moist crust.

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