If you’ve eaten a thin-crust pizza in Chennai any time in the last decade, chances are that you have heard of Ox and Tomato and wondered what happened to it.

The answer is not a comeback. It is Secret Sauce, a new venture from Sandesh Reddy, soft-launching this weekend before opening fully on Monday in Alwarpet, in the space that used to house Finale Dessert Bar.

Mansi, who ran Ox and Tomato for years and is Sandesh’s partner both in business and marriage, did consider reviving that nostalgia for years. “Ox and Tomato saw people who’d walk in everyday to split a meal or just grab and go. People in the neighbourhood had their own favourite items on the menu. I made many friends through the project,” she says.

The two, who have worked together on a menu for the first time, say that it became clear that recreating something from a different era, in a market with so much choice now, was not the best approach. “Trying to recreate an Ox and Tomato in today’s market, when there’s so much option and choices, I didn’t think it was the smartest decision, product-wise. The two of us have come together to work on a menu for the first time. She is the numbers person and asks why the costs are as high,” Sandesh says, laughing. Today, they are looking to point the nostalgia in a different direction.

At Secret Sauce, the menu is built on travel memories and personal cravings, translated onto a 12-inch pizza, Sandesh says. “The pizzas recreate different memories of our travels, plus what we like eating,” he adds.

The Siesta with a spicy Goan chorizo pork sausage, pineapple, jalapeno on a curry base, for instance, comes from times that Sandy has spent trying shack-style meals by the Arabian Sea. He says that it has the exact lazy, sun-soaked quality. On the menu, this is a clear winner. The pepperoni and the chilli-cheese-toast-inspired pizza (reportedly the only dish Sandesh and Mansi agree on) are equally solid — no surprises, just good pizza done right. “A lot more pepperoni,” he tells Chef Perumal who has been working with him for 15 years. We hand-pick the meaty red desks as we go, ensuring that none of the delicious smokiness goes to waste.

Not every experiment lands the same for every palate. The Thai-inspired pizza with prawns, built around a green curry base, came through with a fairly generous hand of basil and lemongrass, making for a more herb-forward bite than expected. The Tangra Classic, an ode to Kolkata’s Indo-Chinese carts, had its chicken version leaning a touch sweeter than the chilli-forward name suggests. This is all still work-in-progress though. Sandy suggests tweaks as we eat. The attempt, he says, is to get it as right as he can.

What ties the pizzas together is the crust — thin, crisp, and noticeably lighter than what Chennai is used to today. “The idea is that you could eat a full 12-inch pizza by yourself and not feel extremely stuffed,” Sandesh explains. The dough is cold-fermented for 48 hours but kept low on yeast, then spends about six minutes in a custom Australian oven with ceramic heaters at 400-450°C, giving it a dry, brittle bite. A Neapolitan-style crust, he says, would drown out flavours like the Thai curry or chilli cheese. “Here, the crust doesn’t dominate, so a coconut-based sauce can actually shine through,” Sandesh says.

Chef Perumal, who is hard at work in the kitchen, says that experimenting across cuisines is simply how he likes to cook. “The ideas come from Sandy but I add things here and there,” he says.

The price range for these pizzas sits between ₹450 and ₹650, and Sandesh is upfront that this is meant to be an everyday spot, not an occasion-only indulgence.

There’s also a fun side story. Secret Sauce has teamed up with Maadi Mart, an interesting Chennai-based brand that makes its own range of condiments and a phenomenal curry leaf zaatar potato chip, on a trio of house hot sauces: one Indian-leaning, one citrusy, and one with green apple, beetroot leaves and bullet chilli for a floral kind of heat. Worth asking for on your pizza, if you ask me.

At Secret Sauce, the Siesta (and one that follows after), alone is worth a trip.

Secret Sauce is at 10, CV Raman Road, Natesan Colony, Alwarpet. A meal for two costs around ₹800.