Yes, it’s true, and I’m not afraid to admit it: I love pineapple on my pizza. In fact, the greatest pizza-topping combination imaginable is pepperoni (Yankee style, not the vegetables you would actually get in Italy), hot peppers (peperoni piccanti), and pineapple! The saltiness, the sweetness and the spice all mix together to create an amazing taste sensation. It just works. The initial heat attack, the dulcet acid wash of the fruit to temper the spice, then the final umami satisfaction leave one wanting ever more.
Icelandic Prime Ministers notwithstanding, most people seem to cringe at the idea of fruit on pizza, period. In Italy in particular, with pizza itself being a provision most sacred, natives would scarcely consider the idea of anything but the most basic ingredients adorning their precious pies. That notion is especially silly in my mind since tomatoes are already fruit, so that nut has been cracked, leaving the barn door wide open for a full harvest picked from every part of our edible world.
Thankfully, my tastes do not balk at the suggestion of something new and novel: while I’ve often been accused of being quite picky, I’ll try anything once, and if I like it, I may even try it again, which brings us to the unique pizzeria of Tropi & Co. (is that supposed to be a play on the word tropical?)
Tropi & Co. is known for both their unique selection of pizzas, and their unique way of serving them. Unlike the usual system of looking at a menu, seeing something that whets your appetite, asking nicely for it, then receiving it some time later, at Tropi & Co. it’s agreed that before dining you will pay a set amount (quite a reasonable one at that) for a drink (bottled water, soft drinks etc), as much pizza as you can eat, and then a coffee or tea afterword.
Here’s the catch: when it comes to the pizza, you have no choice in the matter. You are given a small plastic paddle with a red and a green side. If the green is displayed, servers come around with a varied and eclectic selection of non-traditional pizzas, explain the basics, ask if you’d like a slice, then dance away to another part of the dining room.
The vast majority of the pizza started with the same base of baked flatbread, tomato sauce and mozzarella–all consistently and reasonably prepared, but nothing to write home about. Some of our other favourite toppings were:
- First out of the gate: Potato & Mussels
I got really excited because from my vantage point the potato chunks looked the same as pineapple and I thought that would go really well with the mussels. But lo! Disappointment awaited as I took that first bite and had a bland dense morsel stuck to the back of my throat. Next time I should listen with my ears and not my belly. - Spicy salami & Gorgonzola
This was probably the closest I had to what would be a regular North American slice, and I was glad to have it second to cleanse my pallet from the first avante-garde failure and ease me into the rest of the evening. - Mortadella & Pistacchio Cream
I looooooove what we dumb Canadians call “baloney” (spelled ‘Bologna’, after the actual Italian city from which the meat originates), but mortadella is the real thing, with juicy fat pockets hidden throughout the ham and in this case thinly sliced and laid over small dollops of the creamed pistacchi. With a careful rationing of the cream upon the slice, each bite with both mortadella and pistacchio was a surprising treat from a combination I didn’t think I would enjoy at all. - Apple & Prosciutto Cotto (cooked ham)
This is basically a baby step toward the classic Canadian invention of the Hawaiian pizza. The sweetness of the cooked apple and the saltiness of the thinly sliced prosciutto played very well together. They should start a football club. - Anchovies & Capers
Do you like salty things? I think I finished a litre of water after enjoying every bite of this savoury slice. - Pear, Parmesan & Gorgonzola
Gorgonzola must have been on sale since it seemed to have been on every other piece. Thankfully it’s amazing. I hate pears as a rule, but with the salty parm and the creamy gorgonzola the three worked well together. There wasn’t enough parm though. There’s never enough parm. - Nduja, Olives, Stracchino & Basil
Have you ever had chorizo, that spicy Spanish sausage? Nduja is like that, but spicier, more refined, spicier, more complex, spicier, more flavourful, and spicier. After Antonella picked off and ate all the olives for me, this was my favourite slice of the night. The creamy stracchino cheese cutting the spice and balancing the flavour with the perfect amount of basil to round things out. Weak intestines beware: nduja will literally rip right through you.
Like many Italian culinary experiences, I couldn’t see how this would work across the pond. In this case, even the Italians were mystified at first. I honestly thought this place was a grand new experiment, especially considering how passionate people are about their strict pizza precedents. Apparently however, this all-you-can-eat-otherworldly-pizza-parlour has been around for over a decade! And on a cold rainy Sunday night at the end of winter, it was still bumping!
* In North America for some obnoxious reason we’ve shortened pizza down to just ‘za (it’s even a legit Scrabble word!). Thankfully it works perfectly for this very funny joke (credit to Raymond, gourmand and pun-master).
A Nix in Brixia 