[image above taken from the Globe and Mail review by Joanne Kates; photo by Fernando Morales]
Ian and I checked out Queen Margherita Pizza on Saturday night with a friend. We didn’t intentionally try to go on the same day a good review came out in the Globe and Mail, but that’s the way things worked out. We wanted something yummy and not-too-fancy within walking distance, and had heard good things about Queen Margherita. So we headed around the corner, without a reservation, thinking that if they couldn’t accommodate us, we’d go to the Ceili Cottage, or any of the other awesome restos in Leslieville.
The guy at the door was friendly and helpful – it was around 8pm on a Saturday, and he told us that normally we wouldn’t be able to get a table for 3 until 10pm. But he happened to have one coming up if we could wait 10 minutes. So we waited, and were seated within 10-15 minutes. Impressive!
The place is casual and cozy, with lots of beat-up wood floors and beams, and old-timey windows (with the original window panes and lead). I figure those are going to be cold in the winter, but for now, they’re great. There’s a giant wood-fired pizza oven down at one end of the dining room. The menu is simple – you can do a prix fixe with a starter, a pizza and a desert, or you can just order pizza. Mine was delicious, with a nice thin crust, and it was so big that I could only eat half of it and had to take the rest home for lunch the next day. Decent prices too – the prix fixe is $25, and pizzas are between $13 and $17.