Pizza innovation at Za Pizzeria

Lisa and Jason Costantini.

By Kristen Smith

TORONTO — Since Jason and Lisa Costantini met about four years ago, they have been kicking around foodservice concepts. In April, they opened Za Pizzeria near Bloor Street and Brunswick Avenue.

Both with a background in the industry, the couple were trying to figure out how they might create a food truck with a wood-burning pizza oven. The solution came when they were barbecuing a pie at the cottage.

Jason, whose former posts include Mark McEwan’s One Restaurant and Pizzeria Libretto, has outfitted a restaurant grill with a pizza stone, fire bricks and a custom-made cover.

Lisa’s father, who owns a chain of restaurants in Venezuela, encouraged them to pursue the concept, but as a bricks and mortar store.

To run the operation, they have made three of these pizza cookers, which Jason said mimic the cooking process of an Italian wood-burning oven, whose low dome creates radiant heat to cook the pizza quickly and evenly so the bottom doesn’t burn. “The pizza stone retains the heat … the fire bricks radiate the heat back to act as a broiler to cook the pizza from the top,” he explained. A combination of alder, apple, cherry and hickory wood chips is used for flavour and aroma.

While the ovens can be adjusted to make any type of pizza, such as Neapolitan-style, Jason decided on a temperature of about 700 C, buying him a longer grace period when cooking, preparing and cutting three pizzas at once.

The 14-inch pies take two to three minutes in the oven and are served up as whole, halves or quarters, but the couple only lets slices sit for 30 minutes, preferring to cook up fresh pies.

Jason has developed his dough recipe over time, substituting honey for maple syrup to ensure the vegan pizza — which uses cauliflower and macadamia nut puree instead of faux cheese — has no animal byproducts but retains the sweetness.

His pizza creations, which fall into the categories classic, signatures and features, include duck and grapes, salmon tartare and the Oh Canada!, with maple syrup, bacon and potato chips.

Predominently takeout, the 750-square-foot space features red prominently and has five stools facing Bloor Street.

“We had an idea of how we wanted the space to look. We wanted it to be warm and inviting and feel like you’re in our home or in our kitchen,” said Lisa, adding they didn’t want the space to be too personal or overly decorated so that the design could be easily replicated in future locations.

Jason is also working on a patent for the custom grill cover that could be sold to restaurants wanting to create their own grill-top pizza oven.

“From an operations point of view, if you own a bistro and you want to serve thin-crust pizza, all you have to do is add one of these barbecues to your line, as opposed to investing in an actual pizza oven, and you can do any style pizza,” he said.