Is this street in Toronto becoming the unofficial pizza capital of the city?
One street in Toronto that's been known for its impressive restaurant lineup is quickly getting a reputation for being home to a particularly dense concentration of pizza restaurants. Is it too early to start calling Harbord Street the pizza capital of Toronto?
Dreyfus, Bar Eugenie, Maven, DownLow Chicken, Emmer, Parquet: just a small sampling of the ever-popular restaurants (and bakeries, I see you, Emmer) that call Toronto's Harbord Village home.
From Ossington to Spadina, it's a veritable foodie fantasy, and certainly an area that doesn't often get enough credit as one of the best restaurant strips in the city. But for all its fine dining and frills, it's the humble pizza shop that's becoming a defining feature of Harbord Street.
More specifically, it's just how many pizza shops — and good ones, too — on Harbord that are starting to make pizza a central pillar of Harbord Street, so much so that local Instagram account Storefronts of Toronto (@toronto_storefronts) recently posted a video dubbing Harbord "Pizza Street."
I really think we should go for it, too, if for no reason other than to say we live in a city that has a Pizza Street.
There's truth behind it, though. In the roughly 650 metres of Harbord Street between Bathurst and Spadina, you can find six pizza restaurants. I'm no mathematician, but that works out to one pizzeria for every 108 metres. And, yes, I whipped out my calculator app to do that math.
Longstanding institutions Pizza Gigi and Cora Pizza, established in the '70s and '80s, respectively, anchor either end of the strip, with local pizza superpower Piano Piano holding court at the Spadina end, sharing the same corner as Cora.
More recently, Nice Slice and Blondies have also moved into the area, renewing the buzz about the neighbourhood's pizza scene. Oh, and there's also a Pizza Nova.
Not for nothing, but award-winning Pizzeria Badiali also recently opened an outpost just two blocks north of Harbord — or should we start calling it Pizza Street? — at Mirvish Village.
So, the next time you're craving a slice, set due course for Harbord, and you'll be spoiled for choice. Or, hey, why not get one slice from each?
Hector Vasquez at Blondies
