Resto Reco: One of Mississauga’s best pizzerias cooks their pizzas in just 90 seconds flat

There’s no shortage of amazing pizza in Mississauga and a variety of different types to suit your mood, from deep dish to New Jersey style to authentic Neapolitan.

Za Cafe in Mississauga sits firmly in that third camp. The restaurant, which opened in 2019 at 1165 Derry Rd East, is heavily inspired by the style of pizza that originated in Naples, Italy — the pizzeria says their goal is to “bring premium fast fired pizza to our customers to enrich their foodie experience.”

The menu features a variety of tomato-based pizzas including Tandoori Chicken Pizza, Truffle Pizza, Meat Lover Pizza, Hamburger Pizza and Hawaiian Pizza. They also have a “breakfast za” which includes a smoked salmon pizza with egg crumbles, sausage and roasted garlic, breakfast tomato pizza with cracked eggs, pesto and garlic, and duck pizza with duck confit, cracked eggs, herbs, fior di latte and asiago cheese.

THE DISH:

For this review, we decided to sample a classic and went with Za Cafe’s Meat Lover pizza: Tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, pepperoni, house sausage, and Nduja (spicy Italian pork sausage), topped with coriander dressing. It’s also the pizza that eventually landed Za Cafe on our list of Top 5 Pizza Joints in Mississauga.

The combination of all these toppings made for an extremely tasty and flavourful pizza. The zesty flavour of the tomato sauce paired excellently with the generous dollops of mozzarella cheese, and the Nduja was just spicy enough without distracting from the overall taste. All of the toppings tasted fresh and authentic, and the pizza had a soft and tender crust that you would naturally expect from a traditional Neapolitan pizza.

THE UNIQUE:

Za Cafe’s pizzas are handcrafted by their pizzaiolos (Italian for “pizza chefs”) and cooked in their fast fired Milano Oven, which the restaurant says was custom-made and imported from Italy. How fast is it? In keeping with the Neapolitan style, each pizza is cooked in a record time of 90 seconds. Normally a restaurant can only have speed or quality, but it looks like Za Cafe manages to do both just fine!

THE VERDICT:

Za Cafe is hands down one of our favourite pizza joints in Mississauga, currently sitting at #2 on our list — and well worth a try, whether you’re a hardcore Neapolitan traditionalist or just an appreciator of pizza in general. If you’re in the mood for a lot of meat, the Meat Lover pizza is highly recommended.