Introducing: Queen Margherita Pizza’s new Baby Point location
Name: Queen Margherita Pizza Neighbourhood: Baby Point Contact info: 785 Annette St., 647-345-4466, queenmargheritapizza.ca, @qmpizza Owners: John Chetti and Rocco Mazzaferro Chefs: John Galante (chef de cuisine), Matthew Rzeszutek (head pizzaiolo) and Rocco Mazzaferro
The food: Traditional wood-fired Neapolitan pizza made with the essential Italian ingredients: Caputo Tipo 00 flour and San Marzano D.O.P. tomatoes, along with specially made Ontario fior di latte mozzarella.
The selection is the same as at the original Leslieville location, and includes the Diavola ($17), with mozzarella and hot sopressata, and the Alla Campagnolo ($17), a vegetarian pizza with chèvre, asiago and mushrooms. There are also non-pizza options, like a Caesar salad with speck ($10) and Fritti Misti ($12), a pile of fried calamari and tiger shrimp. The restaurant is currently dinner-only, but a lunch service is on the way.
The drinks: Norman Hardie wines and Prosecco are both offered on tap. There’s also a short cocktail list featuring drinks like the Cure-all ($12), with Prosecco, dry vermouth, Aperol and rhubarb bitters ($12).
The place: The restaurant’s namesake monarch is emblazoned in black and white on the front of the former bank building. Inside, dark wooden banquettes line the centre of the space, and in the back, the requisite tiled pizza oven, imported from Naples, is proudly on display.
By the numbers: • 115 seats • 15 pizzaioli, who rotate between the two locations • 10 varieties of pizza rosso (i.e. those covered in San Marzano D.O.P. tomato sauce) • 4 varieties of pizza bianchi (i.e. those without) • 3, the number of QMPs that should be in operation by the summer’s end (the third location is slated for Dundas West)
