This Week In Pizza: Ambassador Pizza Co.

 

 

 

 

Trying three different pizzas in one day? It sounds like a tall task, but it is also a labour of love. Delicious, delicious love...

Recently I wandered out to the Bloorcourt neighbourhood of Toronto (I'm an east-ender so it was a minor trek) and after trying the other local pizza joints Levant and Mac's Pizza... it was time to complete the trilogy with Ambassador.  

Ambassador Pizza Co. is one of the more unusual styles of pizza you will find. While it looks fairly standard on appearance, it is a Windsor style pie and there are details that make a Windsor pizza what it is... most notably the preparation of specific toppings. 

A friend I play softball with (who grew up in Windsor) raves about this type of pizza, and this being my first foray into it... my curiousity was high. Ambassador doesn't have a lot of options (most are simple variations on pepperoni and mushrooms, some with peppers) so I kept it simple and went for a pie with... yep, just mushrooms and pepperoni. 

 

 

Distinctive Element of Windsor Pizza Number One! The pepperoni. Instead of using your typical sliced pepp cups, the pepperoni you see here is shredded. Strange! But effective. You sort of lose a bit of the oiliness of the pork, but the distribution of the pepperoni is more total and consistent in every bite. It does give the pizza a constant saltiness, although not to the point of ruining the other flavours... and having that enjoyable texture of the shredded pepp all throughout the pie is definitely a positive. Kind of like a slightly more aggressive ham, flavour-wise.

Distinctive Element Number Two! And probably the most unique: the mushrooms. Here's the thing, I love mushrooms on pizza. When done right, especially on white creamy pizzas... truly a divine experience. Problem is... most places throw their pre-chopped mushrooms on top of a pizza (so they've already been exposed to air and lost some moisture anyhow) and after fifteen minutes exposed in a hot oven... you get dried out, withered slices of mushrooms that often taste like dust. Wood-fired pizzas can avoid this somewhat since even in the higher oven temperature, the exposure to heat (and thus drying out) isn't as pronounced... but regardless this is a very finicky topping that rarely turns out optimally. Thus why I usually avoid them.

Windsor pizza, however, uses canned mushrooms (or bagged, seeing into Ambassador's fridge while ordering)... which on first thought sounds extremely odd and possibly gross. Having now tried this though... it makes a lot of sense! There's a certain juiciness and meatiness in these mushrooms that is nearly impossible to find any other way on a pizza. While they are somewhat watery, it isn't to the point that it makes the rest of the pie soggy in any way. Indeed, the cheese itself seems to absorb a lot of that and you get a hint of mushroom taste in the cheese as well. It's really quite delightful. 

There are layers to this pizza, both flavour-wise and texturally (it's a word now, damnit!) that are unlike anything I've tried before. It really took me a long time to figure out how I felt about this pizza... it was tricky to determine how much I liked it, because this was truly a curveball to me. For the record, this rarely happens... usually after a slice I have a pretty clear idea how I generally feel about a pie (and clearly I've tried a few). This one? Threw me a genuine loop. The simplicity of it, yet being so different and honestly quirky enough... it took me a while.

Overall! Ambassador is good. Very good, in fact... even though it took me a while to definitively reach that conclusion. I'm not quite as big a fan of the shredded pepperoni as I am the canned/bagged mushrooms. You sort of lose that distinctive crispy, oily slice texture, and having that salty pork seeping into every bite of this pizza was just a little too much, for me anyway. The mushrooms are awesome though, even on a reheat (aside from the crust going stiff, this translates well on the reheat) and the entire pizza is just very excellent on every level. Good, firm mozzarella cheese also, a nice level of char on the crust, and the sauce holds it together (nothing special but also far from generic). 

This has to be a "B++" for me. Didn't completely blow me away... but I was mighty impressed and really hadn't ever encountered a pizza quite like this before. And yet, all the flavours blended together seamlessly. Definitely worth checking out. Neat stuff.