Libretto!

I didn't take any photos, but I've added some pictures of other visits.

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My friend, Jackie, and I met up for dinner last. Where were we going? Pizzeria Libretto!! You bet I suggested it.

We were going to meet at the restaurant but ended up meeting up at Ossington station. We had a chance to catch up on everything before the bus came. We caught the bus and got off near the restaurant. We didn't really know where we were going, but figured out the general location of Libretto. The restaurant was only a two minute walk from the bus stop.

First impressions of the restaurant from the outside: the restaurant looked like a great place to hang out for the business class. A few people, eating at the window seats, were dressed nicely. It looked like they were going out to a function afterwards. There were businessmen in suits and businesswomen in blouses and dress pants/skirts and nice shoes.

First impressions of the interior of the restaurant: definitely looked fancy. Their wall behind their small bar was covered in bottles of wine. They had glass bottles of water.. well, just think of a bastard child of one of those glass wine pourer-jug-pitcher-holder-things and a tall glass milk bottle (Lucy calls says they’re called decanters). I'm going to have those in my house just because they’re so fancy! You have to see them to know what I'm talking about. Anyway, yeah, every table had either wine or water, and sometimes both. Not many people were drinking beer and I don't think I saw anyone drinking pop. Everyone looked to be older than 30 and they were all dressed casually. I felt so underdressed.

Jackie and I ended up waiting for about ten minutes for a seat. We were hoping to either get a seat in the back, where the wood-fired oven and the small open kitchen was located, or in the front where the windows were, so we could get great pictures. We ended up getting a seat in the back of the restaurant in front of the kitchen, but unfortunately, I sat with my back facing the kitchen. *Tear* It was too dark to take photos so I didn't bother. Their menu was pretty much the menu online - very small. There were appetizers and small main dishes listed, but the main thing was their pizza. I already knew what I was going to get (I had decided over a month ago). My friend was unsure, but ended up getting the pizza with caramelized onions, homemade sausage and chili oil (we asked for the pizza without the oil).

Not five minutes later, we had the complimentary slices of bread with the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and something else. The first time I had this was when I went out with Lucy at a place in Kingston, but I wasn't a fan. It just didn't appeal to me. This time, I actually liked it. It was kinda weird, cause they poured the balsamic vinegar, olive oil and something else (something yellow-ish.. but not mustard..? dunno. I should've asked) on a small plate. Jackie wasn't a big fan, so I pretty much ate the whole thing.

I don't know how much time went by after we ordered, but the pizzas came and it was sooo beautiful!! I don't know how to really describe it. I felt like I was looking at a really, really nice piece of artwork. Seriously! I was amazed at how beautiful it was, which is weird, cause I'm not that kind of person. My Margherita pizza looked soo good. I definitely ate with my eyes and just took it all in. *Dreamy sigh...* It was so, so, so gorgeous that I actually hesitated to dig into it at first. But to truly enjoy an artwork such as an authentic made Neapolitan pizza, I had to let my taste buds enjoy it. And man did they ever.


I went to cut a slice out of the pizza and attempted to pick it up and eat it like every other pizza that I've had, but no dice. It was too flimsy, so I did what everyone else did - cut it and eat it with a knife and fork. Oh man... the sauce. The San Marzano tomato sauce. This sauce was amazing. My cheeks cramped up momentarily after my first bite. It was so simple, yet so tasty! It looked like just pureed tomato with maybe a bit of salt added. I'm not usually a fan of plain tomatoes, unless it's in salsa or if it's the canned tomato sauce (yeah, I know it's not the greatest). But this sauce changed everything. The sauce was slightly sweet (natural sweetness - for sure) and a bit tangy. The tanginess was really enjoyable.

Oh man... at first, my taste buds were shocked. Once it stopped, my stomach was like "this is heaven!" Then after I finished that slice (and one more, so pretty much a quarter of my pizza), my mouth and taste buds finally caught up to the moment. No joke, every bite that I had after that, my cheeks cramped with excitement. You know when that happens? They just tense up whenever you eat something that's really tasty and all you can feel is your cheeks imploding. You know... You know.

So I finished the pizza and seriously, EVERY bite - E.V.E.R.Y bite - after I ate the first quarter of the pizza, my mouth would spaz. At the time, I was thinking that the heavenly pizza was so good that my mouth couldn't handle it. Now that I'm thinking about how the sauce tasted, I think it was just the tang of the tomato sauce that made my mouth react the way it did. It was quite the experience! I'm not sure how much you like tomatoes and if you like eating them raw or whatever, but I was just shocked at how good it was.


The other highlight of the pizza was the dough. Not so much the bottom of the pizza, but the crust. I was expecting their crusts to be similar to Pizza Pizza's, since Libretto makes thin crust pizzas, but no. How could I even mention the two establishments in the same sentence? The crusts were fluffy, but not as dense as Lorenzo's. I'm thinking they made my pizza a bit too thin on the bottom because my crusts looked a bit thicker than everyone else's. In any case, the crusts were very good and just reminded me of amazing bread. Mmm....

The cheese wasn't a big thing for me. It was some Ontario made cheese, something-something-something rather, but it was just cheese to me. I tried to taste the flavour of the cheese... but it just tasted like cheese. It wasn't processed plastic cheese that pizza joints usually use. Most of my pizza was just sauce and pizza dough anyway (it was expected, as all pictures of Margherita pizzas looked like that). There were only tiny pools of cheese, whereas typical Ottawa-style pizza is loaded with cheese. The basil wasn't exciting either. There wasn't much to begin with, but it wasn't that strong.

Not sure if I mentioned it above, but I finished my pizza. Oh, I didn't mention the size of them. They don't make small, medium, large, or the other sizes. They only have one size, which covers the plate that they serve us with. They were big for personal pizzas. Almost everyone who was eating there had their own pizza pie, so that was a great sign. You have to go if you're ever in Toronto!

I thought about the pizza afterwards and kept thinking about the sauce. The natural sweetness and tang. I realized that the wasn't really salty about the pizza. It was more sweet than salty. The sweetness of the cheese, dough and sauce. I guess you can add the basil as well, but like I said, I didn't really pay attention to the basil. I think I would make the sauce a bit saltier. Sure, the natural sweetness of the tomato was great, but I'm sure that if I were to go there again in two weeks, I wouldn't enjoy it as much, because of the sweetness of the sauce. Do you know what I mean?

We were going to have dessert there, but Jackie wasn't a fan of their selection.. so we walked down the street into Little Portugal and went into some bakery for dessert and coffee. Well, I had coffee and chocolate mousse while she just had coffee and a bit of my dessert. What a great way to end my awesome day. I hope I don't forget this day. It's just too bad I didn't get to take any pictures to remind me of all of this.. *tear*

Fin.

~ Christine

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