Light My Wood Fire

Shane Crilly at Base Greystones THURS7MAR24

here are quite a few famous sharp left turns out there when it comes to suddenly switching careers.

Young Rod Stewart was a gravedigger before he picked up a mic, Brad Pitt was a limo driver for strippers, and Christopher Walken a lion tamer and then a hoofer before becoming Hollywood’s cuddliest oddball.

Nonetheless, for Shane Crilly, the switch from being a solicitor to making pizza is something that still baffles him.

“I know it made complete sense to me at the time,” he says as we meet up at his fresh-out-of-the-oven Base Wood Fired Pizza in Greystones, “but, for the life of me, I can’t quite figure out what exactly it was that had me convinced. All I knew was, after a trip to Italy, I realised that when pizza was made properly – with only the four natural ingredients needed; flour, water, salt and fresh yeast – it was out of this world…

“So, naturally, I then packed in my well-paying job and terrified my loved ones by opening a pizza joint…”

That was back in 2008, just in time for the big recession, and yet, despite initially knowing the inside of a court room far better than even the outside of a wood fired oven, Base Wood Fired Pizza took off. And it continued to grow, even through the lockdowns.

Today, Shane has nine branches – which means the lad must be doing something very right.

“There are two things that are always at the core of every decision,” he says. “Firstly, that we’re making the best pizza that we possibly can, with all the very best ingredients – some from Italy, the rest from Irish producers, such as Gubbeen, Pigs On The Green and Keelings – but also that our prices are good.

With Greystones chief Michael

“People think, because we only use natural ingredients, making the dough fresh in-house, that we must be expensive, but we’re actually cheaper than a certain very well-known brand that’s on just about every street corner around the world. Including Greystones…”

With specials aplenty – you can find the very latest on Instagram here and Facebook here – making sure that eating well and eating yum always makes sense whilst saving cents, Base have a few tricks up their sleeves planned for Greystones over the coming months. So, watch this spacer.

In the meantime, we chat to the bould Shane about gear shifts, Cove swims and The Great Pineapple Debate…

You can grab your Base Woodfired Pizza yum here or grab the app here. The menu is here, and the old school phone here.