Windsor-Style Pizza at Ambassador Pizza Co.

Windsor-Style Pizza at Ambassador Pizza Co.
Location
: 946 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.ambassadorpizzaco.ca/

Ambassador Pizza serves Windsor-style pizza — yes, Windsor has its own style of pizza (why is there no Toronto-style pizza?  Someone get on that).

This style of pizza is known for having a flour and cornmeal crust, and, most famously, for being topped with shredded pepperoni.

Windsor-Style Pizza at Ambassador Pizza Co.

If you’re buying a slice, you can get either cheese or pepperoni.  Normally I’d go for a plain cheese pizza, but obviously I had to see what was up with the shredded pepperoni.

It’s interesting; you wind up with a much more subtle pepperoni flavour, so if you’re not a big fan of the stuff, this might be the pizza for you.  Its distinctive saltiness is dialed down quite a bit, with the flavour spread much more evenly throughout the slice.

Windsor-Style Pizza at Ambassador Pizza Co.

As for the pizza itself, it’s solid.  The crust a nice exterior crispiness and a pleasant airiness, with just enough heft to hold up to the generous amount of tasty sauce and cheese.  It’s not the most flavourful crust ever, but I think it was brushed with some kind of garlic oil that worked pretty well.

Windsor-Style Pizza at Ambassador Pizza Co.

It’s about nine bucks for a slice, which is on the higher end — but it’s also comically large, so you could easily share.  I don’t it’s anything anyone is going to lose their minds over, but it’s clearly above average.

Great Pizza at King Slice

King Slice
Location
: 1598 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.kingslice.ca/

Whenever there’s a discussion of the best pizza joints in Toronto, King Slice pretty much always comes up.  They’ve been around since ’89 and predate all the trendy spots in the GTA by a few decades, so clearly they’re doing something right.

And yeah, okay.  I just tried a pepperoni slice, and I get it.  I don’t know if it’s my favourite slice in the GTA, but it would be in my top 10 for sure.

King Slice

It’s a simple slice of pizza, but everything is just right: it’s got a good amount of cheese and pepperoni (it’s heavy on both, but doesn’t feel overloaded), the sauce has a zippy richness and definitely doesn’t taste like the canned stuff you might expect from an old-school place like this, and the crust is nicely baked (if a bit bland) with a light crispiness on its exterior.

King Slice

That’s not to mention the famous garlic oil, which they can either slather on just the crust or the whole slice (I went with the former).  This stuff is herby, garlicky, and delicious, and definitely brings the pizza a bunch of personality.  The crust is otherwise a bit lacking in flavour, but once you add a bunch of that garlic oil, you’re in business.

King Slice

The pizza doesn’t taste as fussed-over as some of the trendier joints in the GTA like Badiali or One Night Only (I’m pretty confident that there’s no sourdough or 48 hour proofs happening with the dough here), but for an old-school, no-frills pizza joint like this, it doesn’t get much better.

King Slice

I liked it so much that I came back about a week later to try the margherita slice, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I should also note that the slices are comically oversized; I don’t think I’ve had such a gigantic slice of pizza since the heyday of The Big Slice (RIP).

Tasty Slices at Di’s Pizza Pies

Di's Pizza Pies
Location
: 115 St. Paul Street, St. Catherines
Website: https://www.dispizzapies.com/

Yeah, Di’s Pizza Pies is in St. Catharines and is a bit of a trek from the GTA, but if you’re in the area or passing by, it’s worth stopping in.

Di's Pizza Pies

They had a few slices on offer; I went with the pepperoni (“Red Sauce, Mozzarella, Battistoni Cup and Char Pepperoni, Pecorino”).

Di's Pizza Pies

The pizza is interesting.  I sort of assumed this was going to be the usual thin crust, NYC-style pizza that you can find at so many pizza joints in the GTA.  But the focaccia-like crust is actually quite different from that style of crispiness and chewiness, with a crunchy exterior and a fluffy, bready interior.

Di's Pizza Pies

It definitely works, with the more substantial crust doing a great job of holding up to the flavourful sauce, salty peperoni, and generous amount of cheese.  It’s a great slice.

A Great Slice at Maker Pizza

Maker Pizza
Location
: 59 Cameron Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.makerpizza.com/

I was surprised to see I haven’t written about Maker Pizza on this blog since trying their Reuben pizza several years ago (which I didn’t particularly care for, and which is no longer on the menu).

Maker Pizza

I’ve been back several times since then, and the pizza is always stellar.

Maker Pizza

On this visit, I got a slice of the pepperoni with spicy vodka sauce, and yeah, they continue to serve very good pizza.  The slice had a decent amount of good quality pepperoni (the type that curls up and becomes a grease goblet — the best kind), a nice ratio of cheese and sauce, and a good amount of flavour and a mild spicy kick from the spicy vodka sauce.

Maker Pizza

Of course, a pizza lives and dies by its crust, and the crust here is stellar — great blistered edges, crispy enough to hold up to the toppings and the sauce (but not overly crunchy), and a good amount of chew.  It’s a top-notch slice.

Stellar Pizza at One Night Only

One Night Only
Location
: 581 Pape Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://ono.pizza/

I’ve been hearing basically nothing but great things about One Night Only since it opened — it started out as a home-based pandemic-era lark, but quickly became popular enough to justify their own storefront.

They’re way out on the east end and have somewhat unusual hours (they’re closed on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays), so it took me a while to check the place out, but man I’m glad that I did.  The pizza here is phenomenal.

One Night Only

I tried the pepperoni, bacon and jalapeno; I typically like a more sparsely-topped pie, particularly when I’m first trying a place, but that was all they had left when I showed up at around 1:30 on a Saturday.

It’s an amazing slice of pizza.  The crust has a great balance between exterior crispiness and interior chewiness/fluffiness, with just the right amount of heft and flavour.

One Night Only

The slice is generously topped but still nicely balanced, with a good ratio between the sauce, cheese, and toppings.  And while it’s not the pizza I would have picked if I had the choice, it features great quality pepperoni and bacon, and the pops of heat from the jalapeno slices works well.

One Night Only

The buzz about this place meant my expectations were quite high, but this still managed to exceed them.  It’s easily on par with top-tier places like Badiali, North of Brooklyn, and Superpoint.  It’s so good.