La dolce pizza

Cougars and a Felliniesque atmosphere make it hard to concentrate on the wood-fired pies at Arlequino

by A.J. KINIK

Is it the imposing display of wine bottles stacked floor-to-ceiling on either side of the doorway when you enter? Is it that ever so stylin’ unfinished stone veneer interior (the kind that always gives me the impression that I’m dining in an elegant quarry)? Is it the long mirrors that grace the dining room, turning the room into a narcissist’s paradise? Is it the luxurious feel of that supple ostrich-skin upholstery? Or is it the crisp, cracker-like crusts on their pizzas? I’m not 100 per cent sure, but whatever it is, I’d never seen such an assortment of cougars in my entire life.

Seriously, they were everywhere. Our table was mixed, and there was a table next to us consisting of an older hetero couple, but otherwise Arlequino was entirely given over to hen parties—big groups of heavily perfumed, heavily coiffed, heavily gussied-up glamazons who appeared to be totally on the prowl. We’re talking a City of Women. It was like some kind of Felliniesque fantasy—the perverse pizza parlour scene old Federico never got around to filming.

Anyway, all I can say is that all that shrill laughter rebounding off the stone walls, all that Britney Spears Fantasy wafting through the air, made it awfully hard to concentrate on the food, but somehow we persevered.

In case you haven’t heard, Arlequino is the latest contender in the city’s ongoing battle for pizza supremacy. They have a real wood-fired oven underneath that stone veneer, and a line of pizzas that ranges from the sacred (the San Benedetto, with lobster meat and a cognac-laced sauce, $19) to the profane (the Napoli, the standard issue, $10). And they’re located right downtown on Drummond, just paces from both Ste-Catherine and the Bell Centre. In other words: centre stage.

We got things started on the good foot with a trio of antipasti. Arlequino’s deep-fried bocconcini ($7) were a little too uniform for my liking, but they made for a great bar snack, all oozy and delicious and graced with the charms of a simple marinara sauce. The meatball ($6), on the other hand, looked like a nice, rustic, hand-formed meatball (just like mamma used to make!), but, better yet, it tasted like one. It wasn’t the most complex meatball I’d ever tasted, and the fact that it too came with a simple marinara sauce (unsurprisingly) made it a bit too much like our first appetizer, but it sure hit the spot.

The grilled calamari salad with spicy tomatoes ($16) was big and generous, with plenty of greens, and its tomatoes lived up to their reputation (they definitely had some kick), but we were hard-pressed to find grill marks on the squid, and the combination was crying out for that smoky, freshly grilled flavour.

But enough about all that—what about the pies? Well, Arlequino has some pretty adventurous pizzas on their roster, but for the most part, our table was made up of diehard traditionalists. The most daring selection any of us made was probably the Udine ($14), a potato pizza with ricotta and caramelized onions, and a combination that my dining companion had had earlier this year in New York City. When she blurted out “perogi pizza!” after her first bite, I thought she was just indulging in the simple pleasures of alimentary alliteration, but it turned out she was right. Arlequino’s Udine tasted like an unstuffed perogi slathered on a hot pizza crust. And I mean that in a good way.

My Pescara ($15) came complete with pancetta, hot peppers, mozzarella and tomato sauce, and it was perfectly good—tasty, even—but unremarkable. And the same went for both the Capri ($15) and the Napoli, which were identical in every regard (tomato sauce, cheese, crust), with the exception of price and calibre of mozzarella (bufala on the former, “regular” on the latter). My favourite of the three was actually the Napoli. Not because I’m a classicist, or a cheapskate, but because its crisp, cracker-like crust was the most nicely blistered of the entire lot.

Our expectations were high, wewere ready for some premium pies, but for the moment, Arlequino is still just a pretender, not a full-fledged contender.