PLANT-BASED PIZZAS

Our top dairy-free pies of the moment

THE VEGAN SAUSAGE PIZZA Il Fornello This time-tested GTA chain now offers an entirely separate menu devoted to vegan offerings, from a creamy cashew-avocado caesar salad to a lentil-and-mushroom bolognese. But the wood-fired pizzas are the big draw, and we’re way into the vegan sausage pie. A blistered Neapolitan-style crust is topped with preternaturally creamy Earth Island mozzarella—with a texture that seriously mimics the real, high-fat stuff—and rounds of fennel sausage made from beans, tamari and nutritional yeast. $17. Six locations in the GTA. THE VEGAN MARGHERITA PIZZA Pizzeria Libretto If you want something done right, do it yourself: that’s the adage one of the city’s OG Neapolitan pizzerias applied to the vegan mozzarella it uses on its selection of dairy-free pizzas, and they’re as exacting about the resulting cheesiness as they are about the leopard-spot blisters on the puffy, wood-fired crusts. Chef Rocco Agostino’s nut-free mozz is made from soy with coconut oil and a house-secret ingredient to hold it all together, and it’s a creamy, dense, salty cheeselover’s dream. $16. Four locations in Toronto. THE STRANGER WINGS PIZZA Virtuous Pie A vegan red-sauce pizza might be able to coast on the quality of its tomatoes, but a white-sauce pizza requires more sleight of hand. This B.C.-born chain, which now slings plant-based pies in Little Italy, makes a white sauce from cauliflower, potato, onion and add-ins like miso and nutritional yeast. It’s slathered on a three-dayfermented crust, where chunks of cauliflower are doused in tangy buffalo sauce and drizzled with a blue-cheese sauce made from vegan mayonnaise, tahini and apple cider vinegar. $15. 611 College St., 647-729-9943. THE FAT MAC PIZZA Apiecalypse Now This plant-based pizzeria started life as a twee bakery in what used to be Mirvish Village, hawking decadent vegan doughnuts and other desserts. You can still get doughnuts at their sit-down restaurant across from Christie Pits, but now the emphasis is on savoury stuff, including pizza. Our favourite is the Fat Mac, their take on the you-know-what from youknow-where, loaded with ground not-beef, sweet Vidalia onions, “cheddur” cheese, shredded dills, iceberg lettuce and their housemade Fat Mac sauce. $19–$27. 735 Bloor St. W., 416-516-4555.