A working laundromat is now home to a pizza shop with a difference

The only thing more unusual than the location of new eatery Sega is the pizza it serves.

Inside a functioning laundromat on Elgin Street in Carlton, the team behind nearby Italian restaurant Al Dente Enoteca are putting their own spin on a style of stuffed pizza found across Italy.

The pizza shop is housed inside a functioning laundromat in a glass-walled space that was about to be demolished.Chris Hopkins

Chef and co-owner Andrea Vignali wasn’t on the hunt for another venue. But the idea came to him when he was at Soap Spot Laundrette doing washing for the restaurant and noticed a defunct glass-walled cafe space which was once briefly home to coffee shop Two Snakes.

“I went back to have another look and saw it about to be demolished ... to put in vending machines,” says Vignali. “The next thing you know I’ve signed a lease on WhatsApp.”

‘No one really does it like this [in Melbourne].’

Structurally, little has changed. Sega has just freshened up the existing cafe space at the front of the laundromat, adding some new seating and splashes of pastel-green paint, which also colour the small but sunny courtyard beyond the washing machines.

While cafes in laundromats – functioning or former – aren’t novel in Melbourne, what’s cooking in this one has already caught the attention of Soap Spot’s clientele, largely residents of the surrounding apartment buildings. Sega deals in what the team has dubbed pizza chiusa (“closed” in Italian), inspired by the stuffed pizza farcita found across Italy. Instead of topping the pizza, the good stuff goes inside, creating something like a circular sandwich.

At Sega, they cut each pizza base like a bread roll, load it with your fillings of choice and toast it until golden and gooey.

Vignali has collaborated with South Melbourne’s Focacceria Pugliese on a custom pizza dough that’s par-cooked in a wood-fired oven. It’s delivered daily, ready to be filled before it finishes cooking in the sandwich press.

“When you eat it from the toaster, it has that wood-fired pizza taste,” says Vignali.

“No one really does it like this [in Melbourne].”

More classic options include ham and cheese, spicy salami with fior di latte and Vignali’s own chilli paste, and a four-cheese combo of provolone, mozzarella, stracciatella and brie. Others are more cheffy, like one with rare roast beef from Al Dente and horseradish.

It’s $22 for a full pizza, $15 for half, and $15 for toasties made with sourdough instead.

The offering also includes drinks, such as matcha lattes and St Ali coffee, as well as a green-tinged hybrid tiramisu that combines both products for maximum caffeination. Plus, Sega is the only place you can get Tarts Anon sweets outside the latter’s own locations, so you might find the pastry cabinet lined with anything from pecan slices to tiny rhubarb tarts.

“The first thing that came to mind when I saw this place was throwing a party in it,” says Vignali. That’s exactly what he’s doing for Sega’s official launch on Sunday, September 14, from 11am to 3pm. There’ll be DJ sets, free samples, and beers and spritzes.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily

63 Elgin Street, Carlton, instagram.com/sega_pizza_chiusa_melbourne

With Emma Breheny

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