Sovily serves the food you'll want to invite to your next picnic, watch party, lunchbreak and more. Its menu built on a fluffy foundation of yeasty, airy, crusty pizza dough, it tempts with people-pleasing comfort food, seven days a week. 

If dough—incredibly light dough that carries the deep tang of sourdough starter—is at the core of Sovily, family anchors its roots. The new spot's name is a portmanteau of owner and chef Navid Farzannezhad's name, his wife's and child's. A first Canadian business for the couple, the duo also completely remodelled the space. 

"We designed everything from scratch. My wife and I designed the walls, everything. It's all handmade," explains Farzannezhad. 

Welcoming and bright, it's a place for quiet mornings, midday bites, and family meals, as evidenced by notebooks and pencil crayons placed at each table to offset the micro-sized attention span of littles. 

Originally from Iran, Farzannezhad and his family moved to Canada in 2021. "We have 15 years of experience in our home country as pastry and bakery chefs," he says. 

At Sovily, which opened in March, the couple's goal is to use their knowledge to create something new. "It's a kind of Italian style but it's a combination with Italian and my home country," says Farzannezhad, adding that his dough is based on "the Iranian traditional way to make the dough."

Made from a sourdough starter, it's proofed for two days to develop its flavour and ensure the final product is sufficiently bubbly, bouncy and crisp. 

"Customers give us feedback about the dough," confesses Farzannezhad. "They really like it on the pizza and the sandwiches," he adds, smiling.

Used in every one of the team's menu items, it's an essential Sovily ingredient. Glossy and flavourful, it's expertly rolled to show off the breadth of its potential. In places thin and flaky, others plump and pillowy, this dough can do it all. 

Open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, Sovily's menu includes items for every hour. Available throughout the day, novel breakfast-style dishes include hearty omelettes and egg-crowned pizzas served alongside piping hot espresso-based drinks.

Working with an imported Italian oven, Farzannezhad cranks out 15 pizzas every 10 minutes. "It's from one of the best companies that make pizza ovens," he explains. "It takes 2-3 minutes to bake each pizza."

Topped with eggs, sujuk, pastrami, cheese and banana peppers, the Protein Pizza ($18.99) blends savoury pops of meatiness with creamy lulls. Heaving under its weight of toppings, it provides enough macronutrients to power anyone through their day.

Other options lean classic, smeared with aromatic blitzed basil and lavished with cheese, as in the Four Cheese Pesto ($22.99), or neatly tiled with beef salami, as in the Pepperoni Piccante ($22.99).

For his Truffle Mushroom ($21.99) pie, Farzannezhad heaps garlic-scented mushrooms with smoked mozzarella and melty puddles of mascarpone before drizzling the lot in a blessedly restrained amount of truffle oil. 

Truly testing its own capacity, the Double Sovily ($21.99) reimagines chef's dough as a pliable, blistered sandwich base. Layered with beef pastrami, bologna, tomato, pickles, lettuce and smoked mayo, it's a titanic offering that's fresh and filling, and easily shared. 

With plans to expand the menu—with a selection of dessert pizzas and a liquor license—Sovily aims to capture even more of its Queen West audience.

"We're close Trinity Bellwoods Park,” says Farzannezhad, acknowledging the popularity of his food for picnics. Still, he adds, "we designed the space for people to come, sit here, and enjoy the environment."

Sovily is located at 779 Queen Street West.