Pizza e Pazzi - 1182 St. Clair Avenue West

So apparently there has been a new AVPN certified pizzeria a 20 minute walk from my house for 6 months.  It completely averted my pizza radar.  I’m embarrassed to say the least.  That being said... holy eff.  Had one of the best pizzas in the city last night.  The space is beautiful.  Small but cozy.  The bread they serve from their wood fired oven is amazing.  Some great italian wines and beers.  Incredible, borderline over the top pizza menu.  Great staff.  All in all one of the best pizza experiences in the city.

Though the pizzeria is quite close to my place Carrie and I jumped in a cab right after work.  It was raining, shut up.  5 minutes later we were sitting at our table in the funky little place that is Pizza e Pazzi.  This place is super legit.  Like I said, other than Libretto it’s the only pizzeria in the city that is AVPN certified.  For anyone asking what AVPN (VPN for short) means I’ll tell you.  It means effing awesome.  The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana is a non profit group that safeguards what Naples considers “Pizza”.  You know that Chipotle Chicken Pizza you love so much?  Or the stuffed crust pie that haunts my dreams?  Yeah, that’s not pizza.  At least not technically.  There are incredibly strict standards set by the VPN that a pizzeria needs to adhere to in order to get certified.  Details down to the types of tomatoes and the region of Italy they are grown in, type of flour, dough pressing technique (no rolling pins ya idiot!), oven temperature, etc, etc.  You’re subject to random pop in’s by the VPN and if you’re found in violation of the rules you get one warning and potentially a fine for damaging the VPN name.  It’s intense but it really is an amazing stamp of approval.  You’d be hard pressed to find a crappy VPN certified pizzeria.

As we sat down our waiter suggested a wine for Carrie based on her taste which was delicious and I had a pint of Moretti.  We were then brought some of their bread made in the wood fired oven.  I LOVED it.  Very dense but super moist and chewy.  From there we started with the mussels which were amazing.  I’m not generally one for mussels but felt like venturing out and I’m glad we did.  The mussels were just the right kind of spicy and sat in a pool of sauce made from the same San Marzano tomatoes as the pizza sauce.  Their menu is laminated and looks to be pretty permanent but I’d love to see some rotating seasonal appetizers come summer. 

Another drink later our pizzas arrived.  This is a level of pizza dorkery I don’t expect most people reading this to understand but as the pizzas were laid in front of us I had that feeling in my heart and stomach you get as a roller coaster clicks it’s way to the top of the first drop.  I was... excited to say the least.  We got the Contadina (fior di latte, cherry tomatoes, arugala, ricotta, basil) and the Tartufata (Extra virgin olive oil, mozzarella di bufala DOP, 24 month old proscuitto di parma, mushroom, drizzled with truffle oil).  The pies were beautifully charred.  Great markings on the undercarriage and end crusts.  The dough was light and chewy with a unique taste from the fresh yeast.  Much like with beer the flavour of pizza dough can vary hugely from place to place and even batch to batch. Those differences are all in the fermentation (with dough ingredients being water, salt, flour and yeast flavour isn’t imparted from anything else).  The long and short of it is the yeast begins to eat the sugars in the flour and begins producing carbon dioxide and alcohol (I could have said farting carbon dioxide and alcohol but I thought I’d class it up a bit).  The yeasts activity gives two things to the pizza.  For one it inflates the dough creating the tiny pockets of air (the gluten structure) that make the dough light and airy rather than a dense brick of flour, water and salt.  Secondly, as I said it is also the main factor in the flavour of the dough.  The temperature, type of yeast, length of fermentation among other factors all contribute to a great pie.  Pazzi has it in spades.  

Tartufata undercarriage

Contadina undercarriage

Alright, back to the pizzas.  The middle of the pies were characteristically soupy.  When eating Neapolitan pies I go for the fold technique but wasn’t able to until knife and forking it for a minute.  I don’t mean this in a bad way.  It’s supposed to be soupy in the middle.  It was.  And it was awesome.  The Tartufata was incredibly rich.  ALMOST too rich but I wouldn’t go that far.  I love prosciutto, but I’m poor.  So unless I’m treating myself I buy what is comparably shitty.  This stuff was unreal.  Paper thin but it packed a serious punch.  The truffle oil and buffalo mozzarella put it over the top.  Again, it gets right to the point of “too rich” and then backs off a bit.  The Contadina was incredible.  Arugala is one of my favourite toppings for pizza.  The sweet ricotta and the creamy fior di latte played off each other beautifully but what really struck me about the Contadina was the sauce.  I’m not a huge sauce guy.  Not that I don’t like sauce but it’s not usually a deal maker or breaker for me unless it’s one extreme or the other.  This sauce was incredible though.  Super bright and naturally sweet.  Amazingly concentrated tomato flavour compared to some of the canned tomatoes we get used to here in Canada (these tomatoes are also canned but are meticulously grown in one of the best tomato regions in the world).  Plus the mouth feel and sweetness you get from the cherry tomatoes paired with the incredibly flavourful San Marzano sauce was just... awesome.

We were too full after everything to do desert so we thanked our waiter, the owner, checked out the oven then hopped in a cab.  I was dead asleep barely an hour later.  A serious pizza coma capped off my night.  Pizza e Pazzi - highly, highly recommended.  I’m craving pizza again now... god dang...

ps
This place also does amazing looking fresh, hand made pasta.  I’ll be coming back to check it out for sure.

pps

Would one of you just buy me a real camera already? Jeez...