Despite the abundance of pizzerias there are very few places to buy a slice in Melbourne that aren’t attached to a train station. That’s about to change with SPQR, a wood-fired pizza joint from one of the guys behind MoVida, Pei Modern, Rosa’s Canteen and Lee Ho Fook.

“We’ve been burning the oven each day, slowly curing it,” David Mackintosh says (curing is a process during which the water in the oven’s concrete is steadily “baked out”, so it doesn’t crack in the heat). He says they’re allowed to crank it up by 50 degrees each day until it reaches just over 400 degrees. At this temperature, the pizza will be in and out in 60 seconds.

Designed by Nick Harding from Ha Architects, the Liverpool Street restaurant revolves around this oven, which was custom-made by an Italian family in Thomastown. It has a solid concrete base, an igloo-shaped dome built from bricks, and is covered with insulation and a layer of cement.