| Dear reader, Last night, my partner and I drove from our home in the west end to Ciao Roma in Woodbridge for some of the best al taglio pizza outside of Rome. Because nothing—not a dozen roses, a box of chocolates or a candlelit prix fixe dinner—says love like making a 40-kilometre round trip up and down the 400 in still-kind-of-rush-hour traffic together for food. Someone else who regularly heads north of the city in search of nostalgic Italian dishes is Cibo’s executive chef, Laura Petracca. In this week’s newsletter, she takes us for a tour of her favourite childhood and teenage haunts in Richmond Hill, getting her go-to order at each one. I can only imagine what kind of food coma she experienced afterward, and I thank her for running this gastronomic gauntlet for us. Also, we look inside the kitchen of chef Tomer Markovitz and check out two new spots closer to the core: cozy Christie Pits restaurant the Fall Bright Tavern and a bar from a Calgary-based brand that skews way more tropical than it does country-western. | 