The unforgettably scary first year of the COVID-19 Pandemic was filled with tragic stories of so many businesses and restaurants shuttering permanently. Despite the bleak reality of those times, somehow not every story to emerge from them was so darkly drenched in negativity.
In the Beforetimes, Riverside residents Luke and Brianna Pollard would host weekly dinner parties for family friends... parties that eventually evolved into homemade pizza nights. When COVID restrictions and lockdowns first hit in March 2020, Luke's usual gig of construction work and visual art dried up almost entirely. With all this and a young growing family (and growing further considering wife Brianna was pregnant at the time), Luke continued making pizzas just "as a good way to maintain a sense of normalcy".
Starting up an actual restaurant (while a dream) wasn't really the plan until one day Brianna asked her husband how large his pizzas usually were, and within an hour she had ordered a bunch of custom boxes and informed him how they were going to start selling these pies from their backyard. The name "One Night Only" had been a running joke during the pizza dinner party days, and in Luke Pollard's words "I also thought it sounded kinda rock n'roll". Indeed, the Instagram account for One Night Only far predates ONO becoming any kind of business... the earliest posts just being a fun gallery of homemade pizza fare.
At first the Pollards just reached out to their friends with a tiny menu and asking if they'd like to purchase a pizza one specific night of the week. The response and resulting word of mouth was overwhelming: with ONO becoming featured in Toronto Life and BlogTo as "Toronto's best kept pizza secret" within just a few months... their limited number of pies selling out consistently every week. Eventually the support (and demand for more) grew to the point where a non-straight-out-of-our-backyard location was possible, and they opened a little corner spot on the quiet stretch of Pape Avenue just a few blocks south of the Danforth. This did little to cool off the hype, with famous blogger/culture reviewer/something internet guy David Portnoy paying them a visit in 2022 for an online video grading Toronto pizza.
Well, I'm surely not as famed a pizza reviewer as Portnoy (he actually has a Wikipedia page, whereas I just have a Wookie I drew on a page)... but I do have my specific qualifications on this subject (bizarre as they may be). So! There's no denying the One Night Only story is a damn uplifting tale of succeeding in the most challenging of circumstances. Is the pizza itself as uplifting as the tale of its inception? Or is it more... heartburning? Ah? Hmmm, maybe there's the reason WC Street doesn't have a Wikipedia page.
ONO's pizzas come in only one size: a 16 incher that would probably translate into an XL at your typical pizza chain. They also offer slices but that's definitely a "get there before they run out" type of deal, and since I don't live especially close to Pape/Danforth and am allergic to mornings... a full pizza appeared the safest bet. I also ordered this pizza four hours ahead of time, as while ONO's opening hours have stretched into four days a week now... they still only produce a limited number of pizzas per day and so I chose my time slot early in the afternoon to definitely not miss out.
Another consistency is the simplicity of their menu: while the operation has grown from the backyard porch days the limited menu has remained. There are only half a dozen options and nothing (beyond a potato cream pizza) that is particularly eccentric. Well, if you've read my pizza endeavours before, you'll note that I tend to forgo the simpler or traditional options in favour of seeing how a place's creativity shines...
...no I didn't get the potato pizza. I mean, sheesh. I went for the spicy pepperoni offering you see above: mozzarella cheese, pickled jalapenos, pepperoni, with some grated parmasean and bits of basil on top to finish it.
One thing I've noticed about certain Toronto (or in general) pizza-makers is how they love to talk about the process of making their dough. Chris Getchell of Descendant likens his to a focaccia, Slowhand is going for a San Fran sourdough mixed into the Detroit rectangle style... even my buddy who makes terrific pies in his backyard wood-burning oven can chat your ear off about this stuff. Pollard is no different, describing his process in detail even though ONO is a take on a thin, bubbly New York style. The result does speak for itself: this is a tasty foundation firm enough to hold everything together, but flexible to be folded if that's your slice-eating game as well. It is on the chewier side but not because of dryness, rather the bread density.
Besides, the sauce was what first grabbed my attention anyhow. It's terrific: vivid and tomatoey, different hints of secondary flavour (olive oil and garlic most notably), a lingering taste and very much a presence throughout the pizza. This isn't an overly saucy pizza either, nor is it a doughy or cheesy one: there's exceptional balance between those three key elements and they work together in equal measure. I can't say much about the cheese, only that you don't get much buttery flavour from it but as texture it excels at its job.
Going into the toppings... those are indeed little pepperoni cups. What's the difference, one may ask? With the little cups, the edges tend to curl up when baked and get crispy, while pools of oily flavour fill up in the center. These are another winner, delicious when picked off and eaten by themselves (be careful not to overdo it, trust me I know from experience). As for the jalapenos... if you're looking for a scorcher this is not the pizza for you. Since they're pickled, a lot of the heat is going to be leftover in the liquid and what's left is more of a subtle sting. As such, most of the flavour of these peppers bleed into the rest of the pizza... giving the entire pie a very modest punch. The jalapenos are tasty as is, but fairly overshadowed in this particular assortment of ingredients. In this form, you'd probably notice them far more on a white sauce pizza.
A quick comment on the basil and the dip you see. The basil is a very nice finishing touch, giving a herbal fragrance to each bite (and the little strips ensure wide distribution). Now for the dip, which was complementary... very much less like a typical aioli thing and more like a thick dill sour cream. Not a flavour to overwhelm the pizza with spice or garlic (not that there's anything wrong with that), it's instead, like the basil, a finishing creamy touch with just enough of that grassy, sweet dill to give it more dimensions beyond just creaminess.
Time for the verdict. Gee... this might be one of the more positive reviews I've ever written, eh. Wonderful backstory of a small local business finding success, meanwhile the pizza has zero major faults? I can't find anything to seriously complain about... the only thing being that I strongly suggest reheating any leftover slices in a pan on the stove, low heat. The toaster oven did dry it out somewhat and it became aggressively chewy, while thin crust pizzas almost always reheat better on the pan anyhow (the bottom may get semi-crunchy, but the slice still remains excellent in this form).
One Night Only wasn't a "Holy F*ing Cow!" experience, like the very, very best pizzas in Toronto will bring about. But still, this is a great goddamn pizza I'd grade somewhere in the high 'B++' range, or just barely an 'A--' (it's tricky because anything in the 'A's' for me has to somewhat blow my mind.... it's a tough high standard!). Regardless of those semantics, this probably makes it into the Top 20 on my list of pizzas in Toronto... highly recommend checking them out (but plan/order ahead!).
Also, take better photos of it than I did. Blame the early sunsets of winter.
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