Finding consistently good pizza in Vancouver has always been a challenge. We, for all our culinary inventiveness, have never managed to do for pizza what we’ve done for sushi: which is make it our own. Oh sure, there are a few pizza places like Lombardo’s on “the Drive” or Incendio in Gastown that make a credible product, but there really is no “city-wide” movement for the humble pie.

Following in the best culinary tradition of “if you want it, you’d better make it yourself” we set out to put our new found pizza consciousness into practice.

The key ingredient to great pizza is simplicity… (okay, that and an extremely hot wood-fired brick oven), but like so much of Italian cooking, it always comes down to the little things like refinement and timing.

We cheated and bought our dough from “La Grotta” (our one concession, and yes, a big one!) and set out to make a “pizza bianca”. We caramelized some white and red onions in a little olive oil for our base. We then topped our creation with smoked gouda, chevre, black olives and sliced pear. I must say it had a bit of everything: sweetness from our onions & pears, smokiness from our cheese and saltiness from our olives…heaven! Again, it was the whole simplicity of the thing that made it so good – slightly chewy but utterly thin crust, a light dusting of cheese, and a scattering of a few good ingredients.

So, finding a great pizza in Vancouver that’s reminiscent of Rome? Pretty simple; head to La Grotta and by some dough, pat it out as thin as you can, top it with 1 or 2 great ingredients and then slide it into a super-hot oven…molto buono!