Restaurants
Best Pizza in Vancouver - continued
By Neal McLennan published Apr 30, 2010
We're celebrated for our diverse and accomplished culinary scene. But can we muster up a decent pizza?
Vancouver’s own version of the Montagues and the Capulets was first up because when I asked people where the best pizza in town was, I was most often met with a long pause followed by, “I don’t know, probably Marcello’s,” or, “I don’t know, probably Lombardo’s.”
Of the pair, Marcello’s is the classier joint, with a deeper wine list and burgundy damask curtains to block out the devil-stick handlers on Commercial Drive. Its centrepiece is a massive wood-burning oven that resembles a statue of Ra in an Indiana Jones movie, with the pizzas moving in and out of its open mouth. The menu eschews modern toppings in favour of the Napoli biggies—margherita, funghi, and al pesto are three of the 23 varieties. (Another is the vegetariana, a word that appears in no reputable Italian dictionary.) I went for a pair of classics: the salsiccia with spicy Italian sausage, and the classic napoletana fresca with bocconcini and anchovies—the one that started it all in the old country. Marcello himself—yes, there’s an actual Marcello—boasts that his oven maintains an even 500º, which is generally considered a tad low for wood-fired pies, but it did quick work: our order was delivered in less than 10 minutes. My wife, not an acolyte of the Italian-style pie, looked at both, minimalist with their singular toppings, and said, “These two are going to taste exactly the same.”
“Nonsense,” I replied. “The napoletana will taste really fishy.” I was right, but it’s a tough quibble when you knowingly opt for anchovies. More questionable were the sliced discs of sausage atop the salsiccia. Slicing in lieu of crumbling sausage is a deadly pizza sin and a surefire sign that the meat is not from one of the city’s great Italian sausage houses. Still, the pizzas had authentic, papyrus-thin crusts: Napoli pizzas are invariable knife-and-fork jobs until you get to the crusts, which here were nicely charred if a little too lightly bubbled.
A few blocks down the strip, tucked away in an eyesore of a mall, is Lombardo’s. The two restaurants have so much in common you’d think the proprietors were happily married until a nasty divorce caused them to run rival old-school pizza joints. Ahem. Lombardo’s isn’t even trying to win the décor competition, and its wine list is much smaller (though it does have Masi’s Bardolino—a great pizza wine from Veneto—for $28).
Each establishment has its die-hard backers. (I believe Italians refer to this as a blood feud.) Lombardo’s wood-fired oven also turns out classic Napoli crusts almost identical to the ex’s, except that Lombardo’s adopts the New World approach of preparing pizzas with lots of toppings, so if you want sausage you also get green peppers and onions. The result is a pie that’s less pretty to look at but expresses more personality and more flavour notes.
These rivals have more in common with each other than with any other place in town—from the beautiful ovens that produce those delicate crusts to a misplaced belief that Italian tomatoes need no seasoning to the outdated ritual of giving me a shaker of Kraft “parmesan” should I wish to desecrate fresh mozzarella with cheese that has no expiry date. Both menus have a litany of other Italian options (Marcello’s favours alla vongole over Lombardo’s alle vongole) though my hunch is 90 percent of customers go for the pizza. I’ve seen enough after-school specials to know that, with some perseverance and a little magic, we might get these two places joined again.
Marcello’s 1404 Commercial Dr., 604-215-7760. Marcellopizzeria.com Lombardo’s 1641 Commercial Dr., 604-251-2240. Lombardos.ca