Restaurant Review – Goodfellas Wood Oven Pizza

I heard about Goodfellas through my sister in law, who told me about their Streetsville location and suggested I try it out for some authentic Italian wood oven pizza.

I did my research, and their decor looked adorable (brick stone walls!) and the Google reviews were all positive too. Apparently it used to be halal but unfortunately it isn’t anymore. Oh well, it’s pizza, which means you can always choose vegetarian toppings so off we went!

---

Streetsville (Mississauga)

I went there for lunch during summer of last year, and given that it’s was located in Streetsville, we had to find a parking lot nearby, pay for parking and then walk over. It was a beautiful day though, and sometime during the week so it wasn’t hard to find parking nearby at all.

It was quiet, classy and a complete change of pace from the types of restaurants we had been visiting since shadi (which are halal so typically owned and managed by desis, which let’s face it, usually provide a mediocre experience at best).

The server asked where we would like to sit, and as it was relatively empty we choose a cozy spot near the window.

The two of us ordered one party sized pizza with custom toppings – extra cheese and mushrooms, which cost us a little over $30.

Just check out the size of this bad boy:

It came fresh out of the oven, and the server gave us a pair of scissors to cut up our slices as we liked. We also had a chilli dip on the side, which added some nice heat. The pizza is light, yet definitely not too thin or crispy like some of the other wood oven pizzas I’ve tried. Between the two of us we managed to finish the whole thing without feeling bloated or anything of the sort.

Fountain pop was $3 but we always share one, and it came with unlimited refills, so we definitely got our money’s worth.

For dessert we let the server choose for us, and I’m so glad we did because she came back with this.

 

I’m not sure what it’s called because it’s no longer on their menu unfortunately, but it was heavenly. I have never had dessert at any restaurant that I enjoyed more than Goodfellas. Thinking back, it must have been around $15.

Overall, while it felt relatively pricey for two people, the ambiance, the service and the dessert in particular ensured that we would definitely want to revisit this restaurant.

---

Milton

Imagine my surprise when I was driving through Milton noticed a brand new Goodfella’s had opened not 5 minutes away from Milton Go Station!

We called on Saturday night around 7pm to ask if they needed a reservation for 4 of us, and to my surprise it sounded packed. The earliest available timeslot they had available was for 8:30pm. For Milton, so far from the rest of society, where I imagined hearing owls hooting, this was such a shocker for me. The restaurant isn’t even small! The Streestville location was empty when I had gone last year – but given that it was lunchtime during a weekday, it made sense.

We arrived at 8:15pm and it sounded like the party was on inside! The music was loud, and you could hear a live singer (who had a great voice) all the way out to the street. Parking was near impossible to find. Our server fortunately was nice enough to tell us to park in the front, or back of the plaza or at the Lowe’s across the street, and to avoid the next plaza which is where people tend to get ticketed. I should clarify that he had to tell us this 3 or 4 times before we could make sense out of it, because conversation was damn near impossible with how loud the live music was.

By 8:30~8:40 we were all parked and seated in (I’m still in shock over this) a jam packed restaurant, poring over the menu to decide on our order. The server joked around with us a bit, told us how the restaurant had opened in January and was thriving, that all the locations have the exact same menus and consistent quality, and he knew perfectly well that we couldn’t have alcohol or meats in our food so would make sure to warn us if we were picking out something of the sort, or make the necessary accommodation. Given that we were the only desis in the whole restaurant, this level of understanding was such a pleasant surprise.

Here is what we got:

Bruschetta – $12

It comes with a sort of olive oil dressing to drizzle on top. Tastes very fresh and was a delicious way to start off our meal. This arrived at around 9pm which is when the live singer must have been done for the day, because that’s when we started being able to hear each other through the music again.

Frittura Mista – $22

This was a medley of different seafoods, with a side of salad. Not a huge fan of salads in general, we all pretty much ignored it. On this plate you’ll find squid, calamari, anchovies and giant tiger shrimp with a flavourful dip. While I love seafood, we did have someone there who isn’t a fan, and she even liked the squid! We were being adventurous with our order and didn’t regret it at all. It was very good.

Margherita Personal Pizza – $15 & Quattro Stagioni Personal Pizza (no meat) – $18

We wanted to mix it up with flavours so instead of ordering one party pizza, we got 2 personals.

The Margherita (the one at the bottom) is your regular classic pizza, and the personal size comes as 4 slices. It was quite funny, because I asked for ketchup (my standard condiment) and the server got quite the shock, saying it’s the most unusual request he’s ever had since opening and he will try to please the pregnant lady by searching for it. Alas, there was none in the kitchen but he did bring out two other dipping sauces to make up for it.

The Quattro (the one on the top) was definitely the better of the two pizzas, and although the proportion of mushrooms was hilariously skewed to one half, we thankfully had a mix of people who do and don’t love mushrooms so we weren’t upset.

Tre Amici – $25

As we couldn’t decide on which dessert to try, we went with the option that let us sample almost everything.

This came with a slice of cake, 3 cannolis and a gelato. Their gelato comes in 3 flavours – chocolate, coffee, and lemon and surprisingly their lemon flavour is the most popular! The server told us it’s imported straight from Italy, along with the cannoli shells. I was expecting to hate the lemon gelato and chocolate cake (never been a fan of either flavour) but I have absolutely nothing bad to say about their dessert. It was to die for.

On the way out, we were greeted by (presumably) the owners/managers who seemed to be quite jovial and friendly.

---

Overall, the live music and happening crowd is probably standard across all their locations on Saturday nights (currently they’re in Milton, Streetsville, Toronto, and coming soon in Georgetown and Burnhamthorpe/Hurontario), but I don’t think I would go there again for a family meal in peak hours like that again. I think I’d prefer going during lunch hours for a quieter meal instead of losing my voice.

I can definitely say that the service was consistently excellent each time, the setup is amazing and the price definitely reflects the experience. While I think it’s sort of strange that the pizza is not the highlight of the meal at a wood oven pizza restaurant, I would probably go there again anyway, just for the phenomenal dessert.