Welcome to the tangle of Toronto’s spaghetti

Spaghetti is an incident when Guns N’ Roses comes to town to play at the Rogers Centre

When legendary rockers Guns N’ Roses play the Rogers Centre Saturday, it’s more than a chance to see singer Axl Rose and guitarist Slash reunited after years of bad blood.

It’s also a great excuse to eat spaghetti.

The Gunners released “The Spaghetti Incident?” in 1993, their fifth studio album, covering punk classics. Rose being Rose, he included a bonus track written by mass murderer Charles Manson. (Cue outrage.)

The album’s title was another sore point, supposedly referring to a food/ drug fight between Rose and fired drummer Steven Adler.

Still, it inspired last year’s Spaghetti Incident restaurant in Manhattan, which serves pasta in a cone to go.

But what kind of spaghetti is there to eat in Toronto? I can’t recommend the canned-looking noodles in tomato sauce on the album cover. At least, Not in This Lifetime.

Trashy pasta would echo GNR’s brashness during its heyday. If we had an Olive Garden, maybe.

Better to go with one of the city’s time-tested Italian restaurants, where the spaghetti is floppy and the tomato sauce is distinctly non-artisanal. Like Guns N’ Roses, which formed in 1985, these joints retain a strong fan base even when the (kitchen) lineup changes.

I’m thinking about the simple spaghetti pomodoro ($12) at Paisano’s Italian Garden Caféat116 Willowdale Ave., open 50 years.

Or the rich version at Vesuvio Piz- zeria & Spaghetti House at 3010 Dundas St. W., founded in 1962, where spaghetti ($14) brings two firm meatballs in a thin sauce holding ground beef, onion and celery.

But the one that brings me to my nee-nee-nee-knees is Olympic 76 Pizza at 8 Gloucester St., where the kitchen uses dried basil as extravagantly as our rock stars once used drugs.

The pile of plain noodles is topped with plain, pulpy tomato sauce ($12); mix together with the spoon provided, adding parmesan and chili flakes to taste. Fast to the table and unchanged by time, it is spaghetti to find comfort in. Not even a cold November rain could ruin it.

Welcome to the tangle. apataki@thestar.ca, Twitter @amypataki

STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR There shouldn’t be an incident when you order the spaghetti at Olympic 76 Pizza. It is a pile of plain noodles and pulpy tomato sauce for just $12.

BRIAN VAN DER BRUG/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE Axl Rose is coming to the Rogers Centre on Saturday with a reunited Guns N’ Roses lineup including guitarist Slash.