Best Pizzeria 2015

Best Pizzeria winners of Vancouver Magazine’s 26th Annual Restaurant Awards

• Gold: Nicli Antica Pizzeria
• Silver (tie): Pizzeria Farina
• Silver (tie): Via Tevere
• Honourable Mentions: Bufala; Bella Gelateria, Nook (tie)

 Remember when “New York-style” represented the height of this city’s pizza pizzazz? We aren’t that many years into the Neapolitan revolution, yet there’s no going back to the naive belief that thin-crust is enough to cut it. Speaking of cutting, pies come whole, and gloriously charred, at Gold winner Nicli Antica Pizzeria, our standard-bearer for new-school pizza. The Gastown room is ground zero for casual, unrestrained hedonism, be it the Bianca with gorgonzola, arugula, and roasted red onion or the wonderfully spicy Diavola with fior di latte softening the bite of soppressata and chili. An open kitchen and a pleasant bar mean this room, with its old brick and modern, white-arched open kitchen, is nearly always packed. (Hence the new sib next door.) At Pizzeria Farina (Silver), brainchild of Ask for Luigi author J-C Poirier, loaded pies, dripping with sauce and bubbling at their cracking edges, announce their pleasures from the door with a yeasty shout. One white wine, one red—and the warm, cozy place shuts down once the dough is gone. Via Tevere claims a tie for Silver, thanks to its welcoming (for kids and first dates both) room ranged around that wood-fired oven, plus its Campari cocktails. Honourable Mentions: Bufala; Bella Gelateria, Nook (tie)