If you are what you eat, then I’d be a large, thin crust sausage pizza with extra sauce! Pizza is my guiltiest of all guilty pleasures and the hardest thing for me to say no to when I’m on a diet. Speaking of diets, I’ve been trying to get rid of all these extra pounds that I put on in the last year from food blogging for THE longest time (more on that in another post). But, since October was National Pizza Month (yes, that is a thing), I figured I’d wait until this month to say buh bye to pizza and hello to salad.
That said, I’m pretty excited to share a new Italian pizzeria with you guys today: Oro di Napoli. It’s an Etobicoke gem whose name means the “gold of Naples” in Italian, which is exactly what you feel you’ve struck when you visit here, gold. So, to all my urban-dwelling friends who don’t like to venture outside of the core, here are 3 reasons you need to head out to Etobicoke to try Oro di Napoli STAT.
1. It serves some of the best pizza in the city and is now easily in my top 5.
Pizza Oro with my favourite, Nduja sausage
Two words: Nduja sausage. If you’ve never had this magical roasted pepper-infused Italian sausage before, then you’re missing out! Oro di Napoli’s version is called Pizza Oro and has crushed San Marzano tomatoes, pepperoni, Nduja, house-made sausage, garlic, basil, and Fior di latte. It’s one of the best pizzas I’ve had in the GTA. The crust was crunchy, but not overdone. It was saucy, had lots of meat, and the right amount of cheese. It had everything I could possibly ever want on a pizza; it’s like it was made especially for me!
The prosciutto and arugula pizza
Oro di Napoli also serves a yummy prosciutto di Parma pizza with arugula (which isn’t on the regular menu) in addition to lots of other types of pizza (13 in total are on the menu), all made in their wood-burning oven imported from Italy. Gerri, the friendly restaurant manager, explained that part of why the pizza dough is so good is because it’s made with sparkling water. They also use local ingredients and those imported from Italy, like the olive oil and Fior di latte.
2. It’s an authentic Italian mom and pop shop.
With so many chains popping up all the time, it’s refreshing to eat at a place where you can tell the people really put their hearts and souls into the cooking. Going to Oro di Napoli is like eating at an Italian home – the food is made with love and they make sure no one leaves hungry!
The custom made wood burning pizza oven
3. Oro di Napoli serves a lot more than just pizza.
The antipasti platter made just for us
While they do pizza among the best, that’s not all they do. Go on an empty stomach, so you can try the antipasti, pasta, and fish. Our GIANT antipasti platter was overflowing with cheese, fried calamari, arrancini, pickled cauliflower, apples, bread sticks and meat. The secret behind the flavourful meat: they cut it just before serving instead of pre-cutting it. We also noshed on a 4 cheese fried gnocchi, a ravioli stuffed with forest mushrooms, potato and truffle paste, and as if that wasn’t enough food, we also somehow managed to save room for the whole grilled Mediterranean sea bass! We also each had a glass of Aglianico, which is a red wine made from grapes grown in Avellino, near Naples.
The whole grilled sea bass, which was cooked to perfection
We had another winning meal at Oro di Napoli! Have you been here yet? If so, let me know what you think!
*Note that this is a post sponsored by the restaurant; but as always, all opinions are 100% my own.
