Chef de cuisine Todd Howard feeds a thin-crust “pizzette” into the mouth of CinCin Ristorante’s wood-burning oven.

Credit: Doug Shanks

ON THE PLATE: On the hunt for authentic Italian pizza

I’ve eaten 10 pizzas in the past two weeks. The journey began with a classic Margherita pie, made in the traditional Neapolitan style, at Victoria’s Pizzeria Prima Strada. A thin-crusted wonder, it was spread with a warm, bittersweet jam of seasoned Italian plum tomatoes, and decorated with gooey discs of buffalo mozzarella (from the only water buffalo dairy in Canada, Fairburn Farm in the Cowichan Valley) and a sparse sprinkling of fresh basil. It was the best I’d had in years.

This was followed a few days later when I headed east to Toronto, to speak about Vancouver’s restaurant scene at a conference. Between events, I made my way over to that city’s justly revered Pizzeria Libretto, and put away another Margherita that was even better than the one I’d had in Victoria. Libretto is Canada’s only certified Napolatana pizzeria, which means it follows the strict guidelines laid out by the recently established Associazione Verace Pizza Napolatana, a global association that aims to protect the criteria of true Neapolitan pizza. It may sound needlessly obsessive, but a restaurant must jump through many hoops to be certified. The list of rules — dictating everything from the type of tomatoes to the style of wood-burning oven — is a strict read comparable to the laws governing the production of Chianti. Since Naples is the birthplace of pizza, it’s entirely appropriate for Neapolitans to codify their invention.

Once pizza left Naples, it took a turn for the weird. We’ve all either seen, been told about, or suffered personally the deep-dish monstrosities developed in Chicago, the over-cheesed frisbees native to New York, or the bizarre boiled-egg-and-bacon combination that began — and, thankfully, stayed — in Australia. I once ate a “pizza” in Zimbabwe that was essentially a piece of bread slathered with ketchup and topped with some sort of rubbery processed cheese and a meat I was fairly certain was goat.

And then there are those frozen anomalies in our supermarkets, about which the less said, the better.

Of course, some exceedingly unorthodox pizzas are also exceedingly outstanding (here in Vancouver, Market in the Shangri-La serves a pie covered with fontina and black truffle; I want to be buried with one). But in the eyes of those who revel in gastronomic exactitude, calling such things pizza is a lot like calling a kit car an Alfa Romeo.

Since returning home this past week, I’ve followed the advice of friends and eaten at many of their favourite pizza joints. Some were good, others not. Marcello’s (1404 Commercial, 604-215-7760, MarcelloPizzeria.com) provided a textbook example of what not to do. The golden crust of my Margherita (always the go-to variety when testing a kitchen’s pie prowess) was pimply and nicely charred, as per tradition, but the sauce was weak, and they used oregano instead of basil. When asked what type of wood is used in the oven (ideally, it’s oak), our server replied, deadly serious, “The regular kind.” I’m pretty sure the oven, whose front is carved to look like a gawping face, laughed.

Nat’s (1080 Denman, 604-642-0777; 2684 W. Broadway, 604-737-0707; NatsPizza.com) was recommended ad nauseum. It was fine, but a New York-style pizzeria with optional shake-on Parmesan for your slice of pepperoni was not at all what I was looking for.

I was much happier at Nook (781 Denman, 604-568-4554, NookRestaurant.ca), the winner of Best New Restaurant of 2009 in WE’s Best of the City readers’ poll, where I took a break from my Margherita regimen to enjoy a pie whereupon sweet onions hid bursts of Italian sausage ($15). I then headed to my own ’hood’s Campagnolo (1020 Main, 604-484-6018, CampagnoloRestaurant.ca) for another Margherita. The flawless crust, made in the proper Italian tradition with “00” flour (very finely ground, resulting in a light and puffy bite) and gas-fired, was bedecked with a sauce of San Marzano tomatoes and littered with torn basil and slices of cow’s milk mozzarella). A steal at $12.50.

But the best of the bunch was found at CinCin Ristorante (1154 Robson, 604-688-7338, CinCin.net), where the kitchen has long excelled at virtually everything it does. They don’t even offer a Margherita here, and the pizzas are small and might be construed as silly by some. Designed as appetizers and topped with absurdities like salmon caviar and crème fraîche, they call them “pizzettes,” which I suspect is Italian for “over $15.” This is, of course, a first-class restaurant — one of Vancouver’s best — and what marks the breed is both the confidence to say yes to everything and the know-how to deliver each time. “Of course our chef can make you a Margherita, sir,” my server said — and he’ll do it better than everyone else, he might have added. And in an alder wood-fired oven, no less, giving the crust a sweet smokiness that poor old oak can only guess at. “Can he add a little prosciutto? Of course, sir.”

Trust CinCin to try to out-Napoli the Neapolitans on a busy Wednesday night!

To be honest, the pizzas I had in Victoria and Toronto were better, which instills in me a hope that some ambitious local restaurateur will take it upon him or herself to take our pies even closer to the way they were before they left Naples at the turn of the 20th century. If you build it, I say, I promise we will come.

There are obstacles in the way, naturally (this being Vancouver’s restaurant scene and all). City Hall forbade wood-fired ovens in new restaurant spaces a long time ago, while allowing those addresses already equipped with them to continue as before. This has effectively frozen out all new competition in the quest for the real deal, and slowed any progress towards same. But what’s cooking without a little adversity, right?