Name: Porzia Neighbourhood: Parkdale Contact info: 1314 Queen St. W., 647-342-5776, porzia.ca, @porziaparkdale Owners: Basilio Pesce (formerly of Biff’s, Canoe and Bymark) and Marco Petrucci (99 Sudbury, El Mocambo) Chef: Basilio Pesce. His first solo project
The food: Home-style Southern Italian cooking based on recipes from Pesce’s childhood (the restaurant is named after his mother). The kitchen makes breads, pastas and salumi in-house, and also butchers its own meat. Expect a rotating list of sharing-friendly plates like citrus salad ($11), capicola cotto with pear mostarda ($14) and chicken liver–filled agnolotti served with yellow foot mushrooms ($16). House mortadella and nduja made from horse meat are coming soon.
The drinks: The heavily southern Italian wine list tops out at around $100 with Italian beers on tap and rotating cocktails like True Romance ($12), made of Aperol, tequila, Fernet Branca, ginger and Cava.
The place: The long, thin room is filled with vintages pieces like faded orange Eames chairs, antique light fixtures and reclaimed pews from Palmerston United Church, along with a few steampunk touches, like a custom-built hostess stand. The 21-foot bar and the tall chef’s table are both made of repurposed barn board, breaking up the cool industrial feel.
By the numbers:
• 68 seats, including four at the kitchen bar and 16 along the L-shaped bar
• 40 orange Eames molded plastic chairs
• 30 vintage flashlights that have been restored and converted to LED. The entire bar can run off about 60 watts of power
• 3 Bartenders: Adrian Bishop, Chanel Wood and Aja Sax
• $3–20, the menu’s price range
• 2 kitchens
House-made agnolotti filled with chicken liver in a pork stock reduction, with yellowfoot mushrooms, parsley and a drizzle of 15-year-old balsamic vinegar ($16)
Capicola cotto with pear mostarda ($14): a traditional Italian cold cut made of pork shoulder that’s been brined for two days, slow cooked for 36-hours, then dry-cured. The final product is sliced and served with house-made pear mostarda and pickled fennel salad
Citrus Salad ($11): this riff on Pesce’s mother’s recipe uses blood orange, orange, grapefruit, segmented lemon, lime and Clementine that have been garnished with pomegranate seeds, mint, parsley and cracked olives
Designer Paul Cuthbert collected 30 flashlights from southern Appalachia and the Ozarks to create this unique ’40s-inspired fixture, which hangs above Porzia’s bar. Each flashlight was restored and converted to LED—which means the bar lighting runs off about 60 watts of power
Designer Paul Cuthbert (Maylor Hardware) made this hostess stand out of vintage gauges from an old airplane, a phone from the deck of an American warship and an Edison lightbulb