Review: Tomato

[michaelmas]

I hate having to be this negative.

Let me state first that I wasn't expecting a mindblowing pizza experience here.
Tomato hasn't received the accolades that Bottega, Mozza, and several other places in the Montreal area have received.

Still, I had some hope.
It's not just a delivery joint - it offers sit-down dining, too. That's a decent sign, right?
One has a choice of some higher-end ingredients, too: arugula, specialty sausages, rosemary. That's a good sign.
And their website (rather fancy for a pizza place) includes promising pictures of pizzas made with care and quickly-fired for a crisp crust.

Apparently I should have been more skeptical.

The details:

Sauce: This was deep, brick red. Obviously cooked before topping the pizza, resulting in a twice-cooked, concentrated, almost burnt-tasting sauce. Or maybe it was tomato paste to begin with. Certainly lacked tomato flavor.

Cheese: This was not the promised fresh mozzarella. Yellow, oily, and clumpy. I would have preferred someone put string cheese on my pizza.

Toppings: I tried the pepperoni because I figured they couldn't mess this up. Maybe it's a Montreal thing: the pepperoni was completely lacking spice (no fennel, no chili pepper, nothing) and poorly cooked: the top was dry while the bottom was as pale, pink, and flabby as a piece of bologna. The sausage topping was similarly disappointing.

Crust: The gravest sin of all. This is clearly leavened with baking powder and not yeast. Cracker-thin, devoid of air holes, and cakey-tasting. I have had frozen pizzas with better crusts.

Price: I ordered two small pizzas (basically personal-pan size) and it cost me $30 with tip. I wouldn't complain if the pizza I had received had been at least palatable.

I really didn't want to be so scathing. But pizza is pretty important to me.
So what happened - is this a known bad place that I was foolish enough to order from?
Or is pizza in Montreal such a different beast compared to the rest of North America?

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Bottega
65 Rue Saint-Zotique E, Montreal, QC H2S1K7, CA

Tomato
15 Rue Saint-Viateur W, Montreal, QC H2T2K7, CA

[afoodyear]

My experiences with Tomato mimic yours, if it's any consolation.