CANADA’S BEST PIZZA? IT GETS SETTLED HERE
Vol. 1, No. 17
In this issue of the Reader, your discerning correspondent weighs in on which Canadian city has the best pizza, waxes nostalgic about a time when Mother’s ruled Westdale, and defines what minority is the most oppressed.
This week: a 5-minute read plus a 2-minute video
SO, WHERE IS THE BEST PIZZA?
By the time the small town where I grew up entered the 1980s, it was not really known for its choices in fine dining. Oh, there were three saloons, three sub shops, three pizzerias, and two Chinese food restaurants to serve a combined urban/rural population of about 9,000, but there was only one place where you could order a decent steak. That restaurant is long since gone, torn down to make way for a, um, parking lot, though I guess an apartment building is going in there now.
I concede there are, or at least have been, a few more choices on the fine-dining side in said small town since the ‘80s, but the pizzerias continue to thrive. All of which brings us to the point of this newsletter.
Just where precisely are you going to find the best pizzas in Canada?
Back in 2016, Condé Nast Traveller magazine—which is sort of a big deal in the magazine business, as well as in the travel industry, probably because it’s published in London, England—compiled a list of what it considered the best pizza cities in the world. Oh there was Naples, of course, and New York and Chicago (and don’t get me started on Chicago-style pizza; that stuff is basically baked soup in a bowl), but there was only one Canadian city that made the list.
It was, and I am not making this up, Edmonton.
Now we’ve lived in Edmonton off and on for close to 25 years and can tell you it’s a great town for a lot of reasons. Pizza is NOT one of them. In a city of 1.6 million people, there’s the pizza they serve at Tony’s on 111th Avenue in Little Italy and, well, that’s pretty well it for good pizza.
So which Canadian city wins the pizza wars? From my albeit prejudiced perspective, it’s Windsor, Ontario. Many of the experts who don’t write for English travel magazines agree. In 2014, Armando’s Pizza, a well-known Windsor eatery, placed third in the world for best pizza at the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. Windsor-style pizza, which has been a thing since 1957, has inspired knockoffs in Toronto and Calgary. A Toronto filmmaker even made a movie about it. You can watch the two-minute trailer here.
Not surprisingly, Windsor has more pizzerias per capita than any city in the country, and readers of Canada’s largest newspaper chain voted Windsor’s pizza the best.
So what makes it so special? I could never put my finger on it. It’s like art: I don’t know why, but I know what I like. According to a recent piece in the National Post, it’s the shredded pepperoni, the medium-thin, cornmeal-dusted crust and the mozzarella locally made by the Galati Cheese Company. Oh, and the toppings are always on top of the cheese, never underneath.
My favourite is the Riviera, but I’m also partial to Capri’s, just so you know.
INCIDENTALLY …
That National Post piece also had a few other noteworthy milestones about our burgeoning appetite for pizza. For instance:
- The first pizza served in Canada was at Pizzeria Napoletana, which opened in Montreal’s Little Italy in 1948, 11 years before Windsor’s first, Antonino’s Original Pizza. Both are still going strong.
- The first pizza in Hamilton was a slab offering, much like what they offer in Detroit. That was in 1952 at a place called the Roma Bakery. When I was in college, the big pizza in Hamilton was Mother’s in Westdale, which expanded rapidly across the country before imploding. Corporate pizzerias with more staying power include Boston Pizza, started in Edmonton in 1964, and Pizza Pizza, launched in Toronto in 1967. Both are still everywhere today.
- The Satellite Restaurant in Chatham, Ontario, is the ancestral home of the (gag!) Hawaiian pizza, a controversial entree with pineapple toppings that has been called Canada’s greatest pizza innovation. Hawaiian pizza is still a thing, worldwide. The Satellite is hanging in there, too.
OOO, THAT HURT
Speaking of food, I found this stray thought on Facebook from 2022:
“I got over my addiction to chocolate, marshmallows, and nuts. I won’t lie, it was a rocky road.”
FROM THE MAILBAG
Re ‘When Your Number Is Up,’ Nov. 17. You were on the money, Terry, about the “numerical oddity about lotteries.” In 2002, I hit the sort-of jackpot by matching five of six numbers in the Lotto 6/49. I think the big prize that week was about $2 million. I figured getting five of six numbers would bring in at least five digits. Not even close. My payout was $2,358.30. At least it came without cost on my part; I had played a free ticket that was in itself a freebie, part of a promotion at McDonald’s at the time. Still, I thought what are the odds of ever matching five of six numbers ever again, let alone all six? It’s why I don’t play the lottery anymore. Claudio D’Andrea, Windsor, Ontario
GRATE DISPATCH
Regular cruisers on the Infobahn are familiar with the Darwin Awards, awarded annually to the, er, victims of the weirdest deaths over the previous 12 months, thereby leaving the gene pool less diluted for the rest of us. Most of the explanations for someone’s inopportune demise are either sadly exaggerated, ineligible for consideration (because, for instance they didn’t die or were inadvertently sterilized), or they’re just plain bullshit.
However, thanks to ever vigilant reader Doug McKinnon of Mississauga, this one actually happened. Sorta sad but, you know.
On September 28, 1996, 41-year-old Ray Langston squeezed through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate in Detroit to try to retrieve his car keys. He became pinned head-first and drowned in two feet of water. Ugh.
POSTIES ARE THE TOASTIES
Yes, postal workers are on strike at the post office, though it’s not easy to tell these days. It’s also difficult to do our usual shameless plug when our local posties are on the picket line. At least we think they’re on the picket line. I confess I haven’t seen any picket lines at the neighbourhood Shoppers Drug Mart.
Anyway our ebooks and audiobooks are still available online. They may not be exactly suitable for slipping under the Christmas tree but, hey, when needs must. We’re especially proud of the audiobook for I’d Trade Him Again: Gretzky and Pocklington, which consists of the seven hockey-related chapters of the original book which was published by Fenn/Key Porter. Narrated by a great actor from Ohio who we had to teach to pronounce “Sather,” it’s only $9.95 at terrymcconnell.com.
AND FINALLY…
I’m no expert but to my mind you can’t really consider yourself an oppressed minority unless you happen to be a gay black woman in a wheelchair. See ya next week. / T.
© Terry McConnell, 2024
