This Week In Pizza: Pizza North

 

 

Behold! The hardest pizza place to Google ever! Seriously, type in "Pizza North" and watch your browser have a complete conniption. Do you mean "North of Brooklyn"? Do you mean pizza in the north part of Toronto? Do you mean Santa's favourite pizza near the North Pole? (now there's one you'll definitely have to try on the reheat).  

Anyhow, Pizza North is a new-ish spot near Bathurst and Queen (filling the area's pizza void now that the Pizza Pizza right on the south-west corner is gone... which blew my mind upon seeing that). Needless to say, Pizza North is far superior to Pizza Pizza (thank god), as akin to eating a pre-packaged salad from Starbucks is superior to eating a handful of grass. 

Pizza North actually reminds me of Bitondo's as far as style goes. Heavy big time on the oily cheese (overwhelmingly so), thick crust, subtly greasy and a bit lacking on overall flavour. It just needs a little more oommph, as each bite gets fairly repetitive.

Regardless of that, Pizza North is rather decent. Solid, even. First off, these slices are huge. As you can see, I got four of them... but in fact these are their regular slices just cut in half. So you definitely get some bang for your buck. 

Second... their options weren't particularly appealing, to my tastes at least. I considered getting a full pie, as I usually do... but none of their features were, sorry, to say, all that compelling. Instead, I got a slice of pepperoni and a slice of cheese, while my dear friend/occasional pizza accomplice got a slice loaded with vegetables (and who has time for that healthiness?).

There isn't a whole lot to dissect here. As a pizza? It is tasty but not exceptionally memorable. There's some crunch, some grease, lots of cheese and that's really just it. Nothing wrong with being decent, but with more vivid flavour or variety this could really be something intriguing. I liked the thick pepperoni cups, the vague smattering of basil pesto on the cheese slice (more of that would've been awesome)... but the rest doesn't really engage the taste buds. The elements of a phenomenal pizza are there, but it just needs a lot more... creativity, sauce, something beyond simply throwing the basics together.

Overall. It might sound like I'm being more negative than positive, but this is just a very okay pizza. Just lacking so much to make it truly good. If you're drunk on Queen West near Bathurst, a slice from here will do a fine job filling that stomach hole. This is very decent! But not memorable. It's a "B--" for me, possibly closer to a "C++" considering its sparsity. It does reheat in the toaster oven quite well (the large amount of cheese doesn't dry out), and so we'll give it that nudge in the grade for that. Very solid for a big, filling slice if you're in the area. Not a must try destination... although definitely a big improvement from Pizza Pizza in the Queen/Bathurst area.