Nice slice

Pizzeria Magpie uses authentic Italian ingredients to make some delicious pies

Like many Montrealers who become fixated on a particular food and scour the city’s grid, I’ve had my share of pizzas. From the wood-burning ovens of Pizzeria Napolitana’s 1948 original, to the new trend of bistros throwing a pie or two on their seasonal menus, I’m always up for giving pizza a go. Unlike New York or Chicago, both of whom have a rich culture of Italian immigrants who helped shape distinct styles of pizza, Montreal never really hit that stride. If there is one thing about pizza, however, it’s a forgiving food, and one that you always seem to go back to.

That being said, the newest pizzeria to give the pie game a toss is a charming and well-located spot named Magpie, just off St-Laurent on Maguire. Owned by brothers Boris and Peter Popovic (Peter co-owns the neighbouring Sparrow), Magpie has all the potential to be a regular hangout. With street-front windows, small wood tables and chairs, a tempting stand-up bar and rustic décor, it feels intimate and lived-in, despite their three-month-old status.

The highlight of the room is the tiled pizza oven that occupies a far corner next to the open kitchen, where you can see the cooks throwing rounds of dough. Add to that the old-world charm of their communal bathroom basin complete with bars of soap on magnets next to the tap and their glass-front meat locker that showcases all of their house-cured meats and market fresh produce, it’s a pretty sweet set-up.

The menu, simple and written on brown paper placemats, has a handful of entrees and pizzas to choose from, and oysters at a very competitive price (about $2 a piece). All the tomato sauce is made from San Marzano tomatoes, grown in the volcanic soil of the foothills of Mount Vesuvius, near Naples, and considered some of the best sauce tomatoes in the world, Magpie’s not fucking around. The flour is also Italian in origin and very high quality. They are definitely not skimping on ingredients, and it shows.

We started with the charcuterie plate ($12) and the meatballs in tomato sauce ($9). The charcuterie was made up of Rosette de Lyon, Genoa and a local sausage called Si Pousse du Quebec, made with stout. Served on a wood board with gherkins and olives, it was a great salty mix to get the juices flowing. The Rosette was my favourite and although nothing stood out above the rest, they were all good and worth the price, especially with the fresh-out-of-the-oven bread.

The meatballs, served with the Marzano tomato sauce, were awesome. Small, soft and carefully handled to maintain a light texture, they were bite-size pieces of meaty delight, accentuat­ed by the sweet, pure tomato vibrancy of the sauce that helped to make this dish come alive.

We tried two pizzas, both tomato-sauce-based: caramelized onions, black olives, ricotta and oregano ($15) and prosciutto, arugula, cherry tomatoes and bocconcini ($17).  With the sweetness of the onions playing with the salty olives and light cheese, complemented once again by that Marzano goodness, I would go back to eat this. The prosciutto selection also hit the mark with bitter greens, subtle mozzarella, rich ham and bursts of the fall’s last batch of baby tomatoes. The pizzas look fabulous and are not overly loaded up so that all the flavours work harmoniously without becoming confusing.

The crust, on the other hand, might just be Magpie’s only hindrance, and this is not because it isn’t good, but because it doesn’t always hold form. The onion pizza had by far a superior crust and was almost crispy to the centre with a pillowy outer ring, but the prosciutto one broke apart under the weight of the toppings and was floppy, especially at the centre. It was almost as if the best way to eat it would be to roll it up like a carpet to keep it intact.

Magpie is a great place to eat and is close to hitting the mark. Although the consistency of the crust isn’t quite there yet, I’m confident they’ll solidify their own individual pizza in this city. With all those ingredients lined up, and an environment that makes you want to buy the room (and the staff) a round, it would be a shame not to. ■

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