Maker Pizza Avenue Road
Maker Pizza is one of Toronto’s most popular takeout and delivery pizza joints, and arguably makes some of the best pizza in all of Toronto.
This is thanks in large part to the reputation of executive chef and spokesperson Matty Matheson, who, also arguably, is one of Toronto’s most famous celebrity chefs.
Owner Shlomo Buchler has an equally formidable reputation as a former partner at another famed Toronto pizzeria, FBI Pizza.
Both this spot and the original Cameron location were designed by Community Agency with functionality in mind, having studied that first location to determine exactly how the kitchen needed to flow.
That doesn’t mean the branding isn’t eye-catching, bright yellow and black block lettering bringing modern boldness.
They use only 00 Italian flour, water, yeast, olive oil and salt for their handmade dough. There are no improvers used; what really makes the difference is a three-day aging process which is responsible for the unique texture pizza crusts have here. Almost 700 portions are made daily and that number continues to rise.
California Bianco DiNapoli Rustic Crush single farm organic tomatoes are used to make their tangy, salty, sweet, slightly chunky tomato sauce.
Each pizza is perfectly round with a big puffy, airy crust, fired on screens and double baked in a totally non-traditional method head chef and operational manager Jamie Vrooman says most consider “crazy.” The pizza style here is a hybrid, somewhere between New York and Italian.
The Red and White Pesto Pizza ($25 for a large) is basically a White Pesto pizza with olive oil and a healthy amount of fior de latte and mozzarella, with chili flakes and a delicious nut-free basil pesto that’s actually bound with breadcrumbs.
Red “sauce dollops” are used as toppings rather than a base, the exposed sauce more cooked out and reduced for a punchier concentration of tomato sauce flavour.
Apparently Matheson used to call this sauce dollop method “Snooki style” because of the messy scoops.
The result is total fresh Italian flavour with a serious grease wheel foundation.
The Dr. Pepperoni ($25) has always been a best seller, the classic double pepperoni or as Vrooman puts it, a “sledgehammer amount of pepperoni.”
This one also has ultra-stretchy mozzarella, parmesan and fior de latte that collects creamily in the curly little pepperoni cups, and a potent toasted fennel oil with whole fennel seeds.
They get their pepperoni from Ezzo in Ohio, which only uses full butts to make it.
This second location was opened to fulfill the overwhelming demand for delivery, especially in this more residential northern area where a lot of those orders come from. The mission: a Maker in every neighbourhood.
Hector Vasquez