Best Montreal pizza
- Thread starter master_bates
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Kabuchiko,
Obviously you have never had New Haven style
Pizza. It's considered by many to be the best and is de rigeur in CT:
New Haven–style pizza - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
The pizza I have had in Montreal is nothing like it and also unlike anything I have had in NYC or Boston. I consider the New Haven style to be the best style of pizza in the world. I am just lucky that I don't have to go too far to get it.
Although I have been told by locals that it's a matter of taste, at the risk of sounding like a pizza snob, I don't agree on Montreal pizza. It's like someone telling me I don't know good wine when I taste it. There is the New Haven style as practiced by the Holy Trinity and then there is everyone else. When I am in Montreal I lower my standards and seek pizza that is merely acceptable, and using that merely acceptable standard, 80% of the time I have struck out. It's just not a Montreal strength like bagels or crepes or fromage.
actually you're 100% wrong EB, I have... several times, several shops.
though i started contemplated similarities between old school mtl "all dressed" shops, and old school boston pizzas, mostly in size of their round pies, persistent highschool thickness.....
the look of their pies, but the taste of them, go to boston. the doughs and the oven sources, and the mozzarela cheese.
consider regina pizza in boston. hefty weight for only about a 16" disk.
but fierce fire, char, gives you that bitterness not unlike a master bread bakery with a hard wheat, high glutine flour, brick oven loaf.
leading to which, the new haven style also has that signature hint of bitterness as well, i mean hey, they have coal fired ovens.
however what their dough lacks is flavor from fermentation... it's a rather bland dough...
I suspect but haven't researched, their doughs aren't risen+aged long enough, and by that i refer to beyond 24 hours..... to have a proper natural fragrance.
the look of their pies, but the taste of them, go to boston. the doughs and the oven sources, and the mozzarela cheese.
consider regina pizza in boston. hefty weight for only about a 16" disk.
but fierce fire, char, gives you that bitterness not unlike a master bread bakery with a hard wheat, high glutine flour, brick oven loaf.
leading to which, the new haven style also has that signature hint of bitterness as well, i mean hey, they have coal fired ovens.
however what their dough lacks is flavor from fermentation... it's a rather bland dough...
I suspect but haven't researched, their doughs aren't risen+aged long enough, and by that i refer to beyond 24 hours..... to have a proper natural fragrance.
If you have not tried it at Sally's, Pepe's or Modern, you have not tried the real thing. Those are the "Holy Trinity" of New Haven style pizzerias that everyone else copies.
It's not bitter. It's charred, which gives it a distinctive flavor. Coal burns hot and dry, and not with steam. As it says on the Pepe's website:
"Frank Pepe knew in 1925 that only coal burns hot and dry, and doesn’t give off steam like a wood fire. He knew that only a coal fire could give his “tomato pies” their famous crisp, charred, chewy crust.
We knew when we began to bring Pepe’s Pizza closer to you that we had to recreate his original oven, brick by brick, with a fire door cast from a mold of the original. And even in today’s fast-paced world, we knew that our customers might at times be willing to wait a few minutes longer for our world famous pizza. So that’s how we do it today. Grandpop, you taught us well."
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Pepe's is not so bad, agree, especially if you've never had a chance to try the real thing, in Naples or pretty much any other Italian city.
As far as Montréal is concerned (if I am allowed to bring up something that is actually on topic here), what is the best pizza place in Little Italy these days? Napoletana was pretty good for many years, but recently it has gone downhill, I think. Gema maybe? Any other good places to recommend?
As far as Montréal is concerned (if I am allowed to bring up something that is actually on topic here), what is the best pizza place in Little Italy these days? Napoletana was pretty good for many years, but recently it has gone downhill, I think. Gema maybe? Any other good places to recommend?
These are my favourite places in Montreal:
-Il Foccolaio( philips square)
-New-Yorkaise( Griffintown)
To try: Gentile Parlour ( they’ve opened recently a pizza place, their Italian restaurant is amazing) and Slice&Soda located in Old port
Hope I’ve helped ❤️
-Il Foccolaio( philips square)
-New-Yorkaise( Griffintown)
To try: Gentile Parlour ( they’ve opened recently a pizza place, their Italian restaurant is amazing) and Slice&Soda located in Old port
Hope I’ve helped ❤️
These are my favourite places in Montreal:
-Il Foccolaio( philips square)
-New-Yorkaise( Griffintown)
To try: Gentile Parlour ( they’ve opened recently a pizza place, their Italian restaurant is amazing) and Slice&Soda located in Old port
Hope I’ve helped
I’ll check these out next visit.
I’m not sure if a bartender at a popular bar on Peel Street was just blowing smoke, but he told me that Montreal pizza is generally terrible because a certain family has a monopoly on the cheese that must be purchased by owners of most city pizza restaurants. He responded after I commented just how bad pizza and wings (even Hooters on Crescent couldn’t get it right) are in Montreal compared to north Jersey and NYC.
I’ve had truly bad pizza in Montreal for sure. Frustrated with prior choices, a couple of times I simply settled on Pizza Pizza after Euphoria sessions and before Hurley’s. Sadly, the best pizza I had in Montreal, and it only took 75 minutes to get there cold.
That has always been my goto place when I visit Montreal. Love the ‘Said’. So good!
I hope they are weathering through the Covid storm alright!
What the bartender told you must be correct. To be very honest and even accounting for my being spoiled by eating authentic New Haven style pizza all the time, all pizza I have had in Montreal was average to terrible. The worst pizza I ever had in my life was in Montreal, and the most overrated I ever had was also in Montreal. It's just really bad. It's also pretty bad in Florida and most of the southern states I have travelled to. NYC, CT and Boston are the places to go for the best pizza.
The worst I had was at the bar in the Delta Montreal. It was putrid terrible and I couldn't even finish one slice of the pie. I took it outside and threw it away and went for dinner somewhere else. It's the only time I ever threw away a fresh made pizza.
Around 6 years ago all the local yokels on YELP had a hard on for some pizzeria on western St. Catherine near Westmount. I walked a half mile or so due west from Le Seville condos to get there and it was on same side of road as La Seville. Don't recall the name of the place and not sure if it's still there. Was very high end both in decor and prices. I ordered one of their featured pizzas for which I paid close to $20 and it was not good!!! The crust somewhat tasted like it was made of matzoh meal and reminded me of eating a matzoh. The toppings weren't good either. I recall the meats being finely chopped which I also didn't like, and you never see pizza made like that here. It was an abomination. A culinary bastardization.
So I developed a strategy over the years of basically giving up on pizza and instead focusing on what I know I can get good in Montreal. Crepes. Bagels. Smoked meat. Portuguese chicken, which seems prevalent in Montreal (and also very good) and for some reason not so prevalent here. Because I realized after trying a number of pizza places in Montreal (including the place on Peel which is totally fucking generic and worthless!!!!) that it's misplaced energy and money.
Another thing you can't good anywhere in Montreal is American style pancakes. Most places will not serve them or if they do they will use crepe batter and not buttermilk batter, another bastardization of cuisine!!!! The two places you can get buttermilk pancakes that are OK are Beauty's in Westmount which is a glorified Jewish diner and Reubens downtown. Reubens' pancakes are decent, maybe even solid. At Beauty's you want to get the Challah French toast. The Beauty's pancakes are legit buttermilk and fluffy (not as fluffy as Reubens), but are just Ok.
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Personnaly I stick to the real napolitan pizza, you guys know there is a certification required for naming it "napolitan" in Europe. Otherwise I pass, I cant eat the industrial mozzarella and the dough made from bad flour.
The problem is that in North America there are not many places to find it outside the NYC to Boston corridor with New Haven in the middle. But you are right, the rest of it is garbage, and this thread would be highly insulting to a lot of people who are inside the pizza business and know it. I was at one time, pre-law school. Suffice it to say there is wide variance in the industry as to what is acceptable quality, but the true practitioners of the Neapolitan style (of which New Haven is a distinctive species and refined successor genre, albeit produced with better/superior oven technology) do not accept inferior product. I have seen inferior product get urinated on, by way of demonstrative protest.
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Seems like a great opportunity for an enterpreneur. Good pizza isn't as hard to find around the world as it once was. Most of the highly-rated places are still in the Northeast, but there are places in Arizona, Portland and SF getting attention. Might be hard to participate in the hobby once you get famous as a pizzaiolo though.
How about doner? I can't find any decent ones outside of Germany. Not the abominable gyro -- a real doner is what I want.
Where is good for crepes?
That's unfortunate, since Quebec is so closely associated with maple syrup!
I found Beauty's to be dramatically overrated and expensive. Is it because American-style diner breakfasts are rare in Montreal?
What would be the equivalent meal in Montreal -- something working class and cheap to start the day. Poutine? Sousmarin? Pate Chinois?
Truth is american pancakes are not so popular among locals, wich is normal after all lots of us have french origins so we prefer crêpes. As for Beauty's, it is gone, they took down the building. Dont know if they are planning a reopening.
That's too bad about Beauty's. This basically means that the only place to get American style Pancakes is Reubens.
jmioffe, for crepes with variety, I like Chez Suzette on St. Paul in Old Montreal but there are a number of great places. There is/was a place on corner of Crescent and St. Catherine that's good but it's specialized in dessert crepes. Chez Suzette is a bigger menu and has entree and dessert crepes.
jmioffe, for crepes with variety, I like Chez Suzette on St. Paul in Old Montreal but there are a number of great places. There is/was a place on corner of Crescent and St. Catherine that's good but it's specialized in dessert crepes. Chez Suzette is a bigger menu and has entree and dessert crepes.
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Beauty's is on a pretty key corner and is one floor, so they have good airspace. They're not replacing it with a freaking condo are they?
Personally, I'll have just as good of a meal shopping in the Provigo across the street... I like that market a lot.
and that is why i have, only these places. it wouldn't otherwise have been worth claiming to having properly experienced the places for NH style to which the style came from.
OH it most certainly is bitter.
You've obviously never tasted good brick oven bread you'd have that palette transcending whatever form a dough takes whether baguette or pizza crust.
Because bitterness is about taste.... flavor. And I am saying its flavor profile emcompasses a hint of bitterness from the fierce fire, the char.
Your discussion should be about it's charred, not burnt. If you had read closely enough however that's not the point I made.
"But fierce fire, char, gives you that bitterness not unlike a master bread bakery with a hard wheat, high glutine flour, brick oven loaf.
leading to which, the new haven style also has that signature hint of bitterness as well, i mean hey, they have coal fired ovens.
however what their dough lacks is flavor from fermentation... it's a rather bland dough... "
Frank Pepe's description wasn't needed, but he is saying his stuff isn't burnt, it's charred. The taste, or flavor of which, will be bitter. A hint, I would address it again as that, as not the entire pie is burnt nor tastes burnt.
I can easily quote Bon Apettite but I won't,
essentially, charring is controlled burning, as in you diiberatly burn some, but not all of your product, purposely.
Going back to my point, which the uncharred parts of the NH pies are rather bland. Charring can compensate, or covers up shortcomings in doughs. To which I suspect they, for saving time as time is $, their doughs don't have a long fermentation time. The same can be said of 'certain' famous NY places btw.
I've had better crust taste experiences of non charred, gas fired pies than the pale spots on a NH pie. Because their doughs were given enough time to age, like a proper wine.
When i order my pies, I tell them well done regardless where I am. I seek the taste of slight bitter nuance.
But since it's there, i would say the suggestion from their 'grandson' about wood and why he uses coal, is partly marketing and it casts a good story. Green wood would give off steam but proper cured wood, which is what you'd want to only use anyway, is negligible. Charcoal, if it is true charcoal, would be lump charcoal, which is wood too anyway.
Doesn't stop the Neapolitan pies from Italy at 900-1000 degrees from using wood (requiring it for certified Neapolitan).
The classic montreal pies suffer from several faucets... the doughs beg to be stretched a bit thinner... the low moisture mozz cheese seems to lack butter fat, it does not noticably sweat the 'orange' oil, and develops brown spots a bit too early in the baking process, going past creamy melted too fast, and the oven temps are maybe too low for maximzing oven spring. Neverthless I'm still looking for places that have the best of its style.
What you said about charred style of pizza is essentially correct although I think "bitter" is a harsh word to describe flavor profile. Also, at Pepe's they carefully char the pies somewhat unevenly but in such a way that there are not large swaths of "bland" crust as you state.
What's interesting and what you may not know is that in New Haven County and much of CT there are a large number of imitators of the "Holy Trinity" and some are actually quite good. One of the best known of these "contenders" to the throne of New Haven style pizza king is Zappardo's in West Haven. Zappardo's is one of 5 or 6 worthy top ranked contenders which, while not finishing regularly in the top 10 of national pizza competitions like Pepe's, Sally's or Modern, is nevertheless highly esteemed by locals who have been to all of these places. Roseland in Derby is another very good purveyor, although really overpriced in comparison to the local competition. In my opinion Pepe's and Sally's are the best. They are a few notches above all the others.
What's interesting and what you may not know is that in New Haven County and much of CT there are a large number of imitators of the "Holy Trinity" and some are actually quite good. One of the best known of these "contenders" to the throne of New Haven style pizza king is Zappardo's in West Haven. Zappardo's is one of 5 or 6 worthy top ranked contenders which, while not finishing regularly in the top 10 of national pizza competitions like Pepe's, Sally's or Modern, is nevertheless highly esteemed by locals who have been to all of these places. Roseland in Derby is another very good purveyor, although really overpriced in comparison to the local competition. In my opinion Pepe's and Sally's are the best. They are a few notches above all the others.
You have hit on all the key issues here. And another issue I have noticed is excessive bubbling which usually happens due to using dough that's too cold (most often) or is otherwise substandard. The place on Peel served me a pie that had two huge bubbles that were clearly pierced with a fork but it disrupted even cheese and topping distribution on the pie. WTF. I should have just left without the pizza and without paying.
Room temperature dough must be used. Dough must be stored in coolers but manager's job is to bring to room temperature enough dough to last the night. Peel manager fucked up that day. I got dough that was still cold when put in the oven. It happens at a busy pizzeria when the manager is asleep at the switch.
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