Sticks & Stones Pizza Restaurant – Dubbo NSW

Looks like Sticks & Stones is has new owners and is renamed The Red Barrel. Will need to pay it a visit soon I guess.

Overall I give Sticks & Stones 7.5 glutens (or gluten-less points for those who need it) out of 10.

This week I put some decent time and effort into trying the wood fired pizza and other goodies at Sticks & Stones Pizza Restaurant here in Dubbo. I didn’t want to leave it up to chance so visited with 2 different dining parties on 2 different nights. 😉

On Monday night I had the pleasure of dining with 2 door to door rock salesmen in town for work (as usual real names and occupations are protected). We shared some garlic bread and a few pizza’s.

The 3 pizza’s we chose were:

Greek Lamb

The Greek Lamb pizza has a tomato sauce base, mozzarella cheese, roasted lamb, fetta cheese, semi dried tomato, capsicum, kalamata olives, and three pepper yoghurt. Now I’m usually the type of person to pick olives off a pizza but they worked really well here. I recommend this pizza, it was delicious.

Spicy Chorizo

The spicy chorizo pizza has a tomato sauce base, mozzarella cheese, spicy chorizo sausage, capsicum, Spanish onion, and spicy herbs. I love the way they don’t skimp on the chorizo. This too was very tasty.

Chicken Aioli

The third pizza we ate, the chicken aioli, has a tomato sauce base, mozzarella cheese, roasted chicken, Spanish onion, bacon, and aioli sauce. It was a tough choice determining my favourite by this one was close to taking it out. It’s different, that amount of aioli on a pizza, but for me it works.

After we had placed our order the waitress complimented us on our choices as these are their 3 most popular pizzas. So if you’re visiting for the first time and are unsure what to get then I suggest starting with these.

Garlic & Herb Focaccia Bread

For a starter we had the garlic and herb focaccia bread and this was some tasty bread. As you can see it has cheese all the way to the edge and was cooked very well. The top of the cheese had a crisp to it without being overcooked, and we all know focaccia is just the bomb.

Then later in the week I was joined by the local Dubbo crew I eat with. It was a special evening as we finally had the pleasure of being joined by our friend who works too long hours. We also had a visit from a couple that live a fair way out of town on a unique farm. Ok, I was going to protect their identity as well and make a little joke but instead I’ll give them a plug.

The live and work at Emu Logic, an Emu farm at Tooraweenah. Which you should like visit and buy stuff from their online shop or at the farm and stuff.

Ok, back to the pizza and pasta at Sticks & Stones.

On my second visit there were 8 of us. There were a bunch of half and half pizzas ordered also so lots of different flavours around the table. Plus this time there were 3 pasta dishes and as a starter we had a couple of their “Pizza Crusts”.

The menu didn’t describe what a pizza crust was so I was interested to see what would come out. If I had to guess it would have been smaller, maybe rectangular in shape, pieces of cooked pizza dough with light toppings on them. We ordered the garlic and also the chilli & herb.

They’re pizzas. That’s all. Like a garlic pizza some pizza shops serve instead of garlic bread. I love a good garlic pizza so this excited me. Though I don’t get the name. Pizza crust is usually the least favourite part of a pizza so not sure where that name came from.

I really enjoyed the Chilli & Herb. Which has garlic oil, sweet chilli sauce, fresh herbs, and parmesan cheese.

The Garlic Pizza Crust was also tasty. It was topped with garlic oil and parmesan cheese.

I was keen to order a pasta dish so that I could taste that side of their menu too so went for the Penne Ala Matriciana.

This dish has lean bacon pieces, red capsicum, onion, and chilli in a homemade tomato and basil sauce.

I really enjoyed it, I loved the chilli in it but maybe it had a tad much or the other flavours weren’t strong enough. I only say this as the chilli hindered the other flavours from coming through strong enough. But I definitely think it should still be there. Still a tasty dish.

My biggest issue with the dish though was the size. It comes on a massive plate but really the amount of food in the middle isn’t the largest serve. I was left a little hungry despite enjoying it.

Here’s a few photos of the other dishes around the table.

All reports were very positive. Most people had been here before but at least one of them commented that they had forgotten how good the pizza was.

Just a word of warning, if you a person who loves a pizza full of meat and light on the green stuff then give the “Meat Pizza” a miss. It has a lot of capsicum and onion on it. This was a little disappointing for our friend that is definitely a meat eater more than a salad or veggie man.

The “Sticks” pizza is very tasty, I tried a piece of it and thought it was great.

Overall they do woodfired pizza very well. The bases are crispy though, so if that’s not your thing at all might be best to try the pasta. But I would definitely recommend that you give this place a go.

For those who need to eat gluten free then fear not. The majority of Sticks & Stones pasta is gluten free and they can do any of their pizzas on a gluten free base. I was very surprised at how many little GF’s there were on the menu.

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