Heartbreakers Pizza
465 Parkdale Ave., 613-724-1144,
heartbreakerspizza.com
Open:
Tuesday to Saturday 4 to 8 p.m. for pickup and delivery orders, for delivery phone orders in between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m.
Prices:
large pizzas for $30, small pizzas for $18, delivery through Love Local Delivery for $5 or more, depending on distance driven
During this new stay-at-home normal, when life has felt slower and shrunken, the small things have come more sharply into focus and become more meaningful.
Specifically, at my dining room table in the last week, those small things were circular and roughly 13 inches in diameter, composed of six beautifully doughy slices and impeccably garnished to deliver waves of flavour.
I’m speaking of the pizzas from Heartbreakers Pizza, a Parkdale Avenue business that has the distinction of having opened days before the strictures of COVID-19 slid into place a month ago, changing practically everything for everyone.
Like every other eatery in town faced with governmental mandates meant to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus, the fledgling pizza shop faced a choice of closing for the foreseeable future or offering its food for takeout and delivery orders only.
Fortunately for Heartbreakers, which seats 30 and had planned to forego offering takeout in its early days, pizza is eminently portable. More than that, the pies I’ve had from Heartbreakers have been top-notch thin-crust beauts.
They were impressive enough that I’ve added Heartbreakers to my shortlist of places, along with Tennessy Willems, Farinella and Pi Co., from which I’ll order pizzas to ward off the pandemic blues.
Heartbreakers is the newest of that batch, but its owners, Juliana Graf and siblings Andrew and Lizzie Chatham, have food industry experience that girds what they do. Andrew and Graf worked in various Ottawa restaurants, before they opened the Fieldhouse Café in Perth in 2014. Their desire to return to Ottawa led to this year’s opening of Heartbreakers.
The pizza place’s menu is admirably compact, offering two salads, chicken wings, and just five pies, of which one is customizable. (Vegan cheese is also an option.)
We’ve tried all of the pizzas, and no clear favourite emerged, which I think is a good sign.
First, every pie had an admirable, tasty crust with a pleasing amount of chew to it. The basic cheese pie, adorned with my son’s choice of pepperoni and roasted mushrooms, definitely outdid more generic versions of classic pizza.
The fennel sausage pizza was well balanced and solidly satisfying. The ham and pineapple and green olive pizza was pretty persuasive, even for those who normally curse tropical fruit on pizza.
My next pick from Heartbreakers may well be one of its vegetarian pies. The so-called “Gourd-geous!” pizza may oversell the namesake roasted squash among its toppings, but its walnut pesto prompted eye-widening and sighs of appreciation. The roasted mushroom pizza, packed with creminis, shiitakes and oyster mushrooms, is a must for fans of the fungi.
Of two generously sized salads, the kale Caesar ($14) showered with Grana Padano and toasted almonds was much more compelling and savoury than the simple salad of greens ($12).
The restaurant is licensed and because the Ontario government now allows it, Heartbreakers offers some interesting natural wines in the $33-to-$45 range to go.
Picking up our first order was no problem. However, there was a hitch last weekend with our delivery. We’d hoped to have pizza at our doorstep for about 5:30 p.m. through the new Love Local Delivery service, and were told the order would arrive during the one-hour window between 5 and 6 p.m. But 6:15 p.m. rolled round and still there was no pizza.
When I finally called Heartbreakers to inquire, the apologetic staffer explained that the system went down and my delivery information had disappeared, leaving them no way to reach me. To make amends, the Heartbreakers staffer comped my order, drove it to me herself and threw in a $20 gift card.
In pre-pandemic times, I might have been more irate about the slip-up. But after this first month of being a hermit, I was much more grateful to once again enjoy food that I didn’t have to cook, and a bit of reheating in a warm oven was the slightest of delays before our pizza feast.