What’s on the menu at Raffaella, a New York–style pizzeria inside the Annex Hotel

Name: Raffaella Contact: 296 Brunswick Ave., raffaellapizza.com, @raffaellapizza
Neighbourhood: The Annex
Chef-owner: Simon Vickerson Accessibility: Not fully accessible

Simon Vickerson honed his craft on the streets of Toronto, peddling pizza to partiers as they filtered out of bars and clubs. He’d get home from his shift at a restaurant nearby and immediately head out again to run what was then called Raff’s Pizza Stand, which he ran with Julien Bequet. They’d set up anywhere people wanted pizza.

“We just kind of said yes to everything. We did a wedding, a rave, a basketball competition. We sold pizzas outside a vintage store. Just tons of random opportunities,” Vickerson says. “But, most Saturday nights, when I finished by bartending shift around 3 a.m., I’d run to my place, where I had a full-size fridge at the foot of my bed just filled with dough. I’d take all that dough, put it in a wagon, and run down to College and Bathurst.”

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When a space became available at the Annex Hotel, Vickerson was given the opportunity to temporarily set up Raff’s Pizza Stand there. The pop-up was so successful that he was offered a permanent home—and thus, Raffaella, Vickerson’s first sit-down restaurant, was born.

The result is a cozy spot that pays homage to the classic Italian-American kitchens of New York, with a family-style Italian menu full of the dishes Vickerson grew up eating—some made using recipes copied from his grandmother’s handwritten notes. “It really is that feeling of sitting at an Italian family’s dinner table with strangers, with friends,” Vickerson says. “You’re laughing, you’re having fun—and you leave in a food coma.”

Related: That Nonna Life, an event series celebrating Italian-Canadian culture

The Food

Of course, the cornerstone of Raffaella’s menu is pizza. “I spent a lot of time developing the dough recipe,” Vickerson says. “My friends and I used to have a spreadsheet of all the pizza places in Toronto, where we’d keep really detailed reviews and rankings of them. So that was our goal with the pizza—to be the number one in Toronto.” His secret sauce? That recipe comes courtesy of his nonna, whom the restaurant is named after.

The Drinks

The short beverage menu includes classic cocktails (including a weekly rotating feature), Italian beer and four wines (a red, a white, a sparkling and a weekly feature). In true Italian tradition, guests are treated to complimentary house-made limoncello at the end of their meal.

The Space

Checkered tablecloths cover the tables, old-school hip hop from Vickerson’s own playlist booms from the speakers and art pieces imported from a designer in Italy adorn the walls. The private dining area, previously a stage, can be closed off by curtains—the staff has lovingly dubbed it “the mafia table.”