Compared to I'd guess the majority of my neighbours... I'm essentially a newcomer to the east Beaches neighbourhood of Toronto. Even after nearly a decade! As such, my memory of longtime places now departed is considerably hazy.
I have very fond memories of The Salty Dog Pub, Bam! Bistro, remember Whitlock's (which has been a cursed location since closing a few year back), Hogtown Smoke, Cinamon Indian Bistro, a Pizza Hut on the corner of Hambly/Queen, and of course (most importantly) the famous Lick's Burgers near Waverley where the staff would all sing your order. When speaking to an older friend who grew up in the area, however, I can't even imagine what that main stretch of Queen Street East looked like when I was in high school twenty years ago, nevermind thirty when he was.
The Upper Beaches area triples down on my severe lack of recollection, since its an area I frequent much, much less (being separated by a cliff will do that). I'd first noticed Pizzeria Rustico a couple of years ago as a papered up storefront while I was walking by, unsure if this was some restaurant that had escaped my notice before a demise, or a new place waiting for the endless pandemic to ease up already so to finally open their doors.
Turns out both were somewhat correct. Upon ordering from Rustico, seeing the "Since 2004" on the box made me immediately curious. Their website is very minimal and provides no back story or "About Us", but digging deeper I discovered this was a re-opening (dating to about last year) at a new location. Again, I couldn't find definite information about where the old one was (I suppose I could go back to the restaurant and ask... but that sounds like actual work and ugh that stupid cliff). However, searching the interwebs revealed an establishment called Rustico Italian Food, a resto/bodega which seems to have shuttered back in 2018... located, yep, at Warden and Kingston Road which is barely a block away from where Pizzeria Rustico is now. Seeing as the (very limited) online reviews of both places refer to a chef named Joe... I'm confident you, dear reader, can put away the Holmes hat and take this leap of an assumption with me.
Oh, and also checking this article the logo looks nearly the same. But still! Detective work!
Walking inside Pizzeria Rustico reminded me a lot of, and yes I know I refer to it often, my days working at Pizza Libretto Ossington... but hear me out. I haven't been back to the Ossington one in several years so maybe they've expanded it, but as the original location it is considerably smaller than the newer ones... which despite it being so busy back then still gave it a homier, more intimate vibe. Rustico's interior aesthetic is much the same: a quaint Italian eatery with enough sheen and style to suggest high quality food, but with a certain warmth to be welcoming rather than fancy, aggressively hip or pretentious. Aside from the red lights seeming on some kind of overdrive, it's an appealing space for a sit down dinner.
Many of the pizza options featured toppings I prefer to avoid (artichokes, olives) and while I was incredibly tempted to try one of their white pizzas with potatoes, sausage and pecorino cheese... for a first visit I buckled and kept it very simple with a Diavola.
Simple is indeed the name of this match: It's just sauce, cheese and spicy soppressata. "Diavola" essentially translates as "spicy", or "the devil's spice" if you want to be more eloquent about it... which means that there are many different versions of a Diavola pizza. Many I've encountered will use a chili oil, or hot peppers, or even a spicier tomato sauce to enhance the heat. Rustico here chooses to let the salami do all the heavy spicy lifting, and we shall get into whether or not they succeed.
We'll start with the basics though, since this pizza is depending so much upon them. The crust! I will say, the fantastic Somun Superstar aside (also on Kingston Road, just a few leaps westbound)... it'd been a while since a good crust/dough had come my way. Superstar utilizes their mastery of baking, whereas Rustico somehow creates a dough that is impressively light and airy, but with that valuable crisp and baked flavour. It's really good, and holds up on the reheat also (a little tougher after the pan, but far from chewing old gum).
The mozzarella likewise is of good quality. It's melted in that sweet spot of having enough coverage across the pie, but still firm and wonderful when you get a good bite of it. Even cold (always an effective test) this cheese holds up and keeps its flavour, and when warm it is very on point. So far so good.
Now for the sauce. Possibly my favourite thing here because it has a subtle little flavour to it I haven't encountered often. It leans on the sweeter side of tomato sauces, but it's much more of a fruity sweet than an sugary one. Some cheap pizza sauces can lean sweet and it's a fleeting sensation to disguise the lack of anything else. Here, Rustico brings something that while still tasting very much like a good tomato pizza sauce, also has this sort of plum/pear note that sneaks in, says hello, and gently waves goodbye. Very interesting stuff.
Time for the headliner, the salami. The Diavola soloist, in this case. It's a thicker cut/slice, and in of itself? Tasty. Plenty of flavour, not aggressively salty or oily, and they are generous with it. The spice? Ahhhhh. Sorry, but it's just not there. Trying a piece of the soppressata on its own... there's a bit of a building earthy heat that eventually arrives in the back of the mouth, but vanishes very quickly. I'm no spice fiend (though my tolerance might be stronger than some) however I was hoping for even just something that would elbow my taste buds into "ooooo, nice" on the heat front.
Perhaps they're going for a more accessible level of spice here, which is fine of course... but this brings everything all around to Rustico's biggest failing for me: as a simple pizza it works but it's really just missing one thing. This pizza is my only example sure but judging by the menu, they keep things rather straightforward (which is why the white potato pizza caught my eye, it seemed so out of place amongst the rest). That's a terrific modus operandi when you can nail the absolute basics, which Rustico absolutely does. However... what elevates a pizza from very good to elite can be such a little thing. A little dollop of creamy cheese, a sprinkle of cracked pepper or herbs, a certain drizzle of oil... all of those could've really unlocked the true potential of this pizza here.
Overall! Many of the reviews I've read online (after I tried Rustico myself, I like going in blind without pre-context) were very positive of their pizzas, although slightly discouraged by the price-point. I'll theorize that how basic their pizza is might play a role in that discouragement: paying a premium price for something quite good but also not... exciting. And man... some chili oil or pickled peppers on this Diavola here would elevate it so, so much. Even if it cost an extra couple bucks, just that added element would catapult it up the list.
As is, Pizzeria Rustico is a very good pizza that gets the fundamentals extremely correct. It's that inescapable sense of lacking 'something' that means I have to land them in the "B" range, although it's on the strong side of that grade. Perhaps one day I'll go back for that potato, sausage and pecorino pizza and re-evaluate, but until then.
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