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Afro's Pizza
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Strolling along Dundas East to Mutual Street you can’t help but spot Afro’s Pizza even though there’s a lot happening on this very urban, slightly gritty, dense downtown block. Just down the street from Metropolitan University, just next door to Just Vape It, Afro’s Pizza stands out because of the bold graffiti sign on its awning: “Afro’s.” But it also stands out because of the bench out in front, inevitably packed with people in two very distinct emotional states: a) hungry anticipation of their freshly-baked pizza emerging from the oven, or b) full-on bliss as they devour their fresh-out-of-the oven pizza.
It’s important to note that the devouring takes place because many of Afro’s most ardent customers are students from nearby Metropolitan, who are inescapably famished. But it’s also important to note that their blissful state goes beyond mere satiation. Plenty of pizzas will stuff you. What makes Afro’s unique, and somewhat paradoxical, is that this unpretentiously robust Detroit-style pizza is topped with elevated ingredients, prepared by a classically French-trained chef, yet still available at an astoundingly affordable price.
“A lot of people actually complain about the price being too low,” confesses Rodney Best, Afro Pizza’s aforementioned classically French-trained chef and co-owner.
When I do a double take because what he just said makes no sense, he laughs and explains: “They’re worried about the low prices because they don’t want us to go out of business.”
Despite the low prices – many individual-sized pizzas cost a mere $10 – such a fate seems unlikely. Apart from his extensive training and decades of toiling in kitchens, before deciding to open his first restaurant, Best and his long-term culinary sidekick, “brother” and business partner, Nathan Wang, embarked upon a hard-core, nine-month business course that offered serious schooling on how to survive, and thrive, in the industry, no matter what catastrophe – financial melt-down, spiralling inflation, even a global pandemic – might occur.
“We could have opened a fine dining restaurant, but we knew it would crumble if something happened,” explains Best. “The most sustainable business we saw during the pandemic was pizza. Pizzerias weren’t just opening, they were succeeding.”
Best and Wang had already created the prototype for an “elevated” pizza when they worked together in a Toronto whisky bar. After months of meticulously scoping out potential spots throughout the GTA, they were ready to close on a space at Richmond and John when they tumbled upon an alternative at 107 Mutual. Half the price and double the size, it came with a bonus basement (which they’ve transformed into their own sake distillery!).
Having nailed down the concept and the space, the only thing missing was a name. Best had long been a fan of Afro Samurai, the titular hero of artist Takashi Okazaki’s cult manga series featuring an avenging Black samurai in an apocalyptic Japan. Subsequently made into a video game, film and TV series, the latter’s soundtrack was composed by RZA of Wu-Tang Clan, whose surreal riffs and hardcore beats also permeate Afro’s Pizza’s compact kitchen and counter area.
“Afro’s is a name that just rolls off your tongue and it’s easy to remember. But the idea of an African who goes to Japan and becomes a samurai also signifies a lot of things we do here, taking different cultures and smashing them together to make something new,” says Best, whose own background is Barbadian and Cantonese.
This smash-up philosophy is reflected in the way Best and Wang have chosen to fuse refined French cooking techniques with the popular North American traditions of a neighbourhood pizza joint. On one hand, the generous use of wine creates full-bodied toppings and sauces with intense flavour profiles. On the other, the use of a hefty (but not heavy) Detroit-style crust provides a base “with great structural integrity for all the crazy stuff we come up with.” says Best.
“Crazy” is a modifier that comes out of Best’s mouth with delightful frequency and Afro’s Seasonal pizzas – which rotate every few months – offer beguiling examples of it. The Curtis “Superfly” Mayfield showcases a rich duck confit with a port and cherry demi-glaze, topped with a fennel and blood orange salad and crispy duck skin. Apart from its fine-dining pedigree and alcohol content, it’s a delicious mash-up of high-low and global cultures very much in keeping with the Afro’s ethos.
The Bruce Leeroy runs with the same idea, but in a completely direction, with toppings that include crispy Chinese pork and pork skin, pickled chilis and onions, along with apples, all drizzled with apple hoisin sauce. “Named after a Black guy pretending to be Chinese, it fits in with what we’re doing here,” says Best.
By now you’ve probably clued into the fun fact that – in keeping with its name – all Afro’s pizzas are named after Afro celebrities whose auras and essences are conjured by their namesake pizzas’ ingredients.
To wit, one of the most popular pies on the menu of permanent Signature pizzas is the Davis Jr. “An old-time classic with a kick,” it features slices of pepperoni and house-cured sausage laid out on a luscious, red layer of Afro’s Sugo. Spiked with basil and stewed for hours, the sauce pulls off the mean feat of being chunky yet silky, and fiercely tomatoey. Before being served, the pizza is tricked out with crispy fried basil. Pickled jalapenos and hot honey provide the promised kick.
Another spicy, saucy favourite, the Jackie Brown is named not after the titular heroine of the Tarantino film, but the Jamaican singer-songwriter whose roots-style reggae was popular in the 1970s. The homage explains the main topping of jerk chicken, pungent and juicy after a 24-hour bath in a marinade of habanero and scotch bonnet peppers, garlic, lemon and cilantro. What it doesn’t explain is why this pizza’s unexpected crowning glory is a crunchy, creamy heap of... cole slaw.
“Some people are on the fence about cole slaw,” admits Best, laying the blame squarely on cole slaw’s conventionally milky, messy dressings, which he himself despises. As a welcome antidote, Afro’s slaw of julienned cabbage, carrots and celery is bathed in a house-made alternative comprised of cilantro, lime juice, coconut and... (yes!) tequila.
“It’s the nicest alcohol to use,” declares Best, enthusiastically. “We use it everywhere.”
By “everywhere,” he’s notably referring to what is easily Afro’s craziest pizza on the menu: the Hendrix Experience.
Like many unconventional experiences, the Hendrix started out as a dare: What if you could actually incorporate the holy trio of beloved Afro-American comfort foods – fried chicken, waffles, watermelon – into a single pizza?
Not one to refuse a dare, Best began by playing around with Afro’s signature pizza dough, infusing it with waffle ingredients such as vanilla and buttermilk to create a crust that “tastes like a waffle, but feels like a pizza.”
The fried chicken was a tricky proposition viewed that Afro’s kitchen has no gas for a deep fryer. Instead, Best made use of a velveting technique of coating the meat in cornstarch and buttermilk, batch-frying it, then blasting it a second time in the oven. The hours and effort involved are worth it; the chicken tastes not only perfectly fried, but startlingly crispy.
Watermelon comes with a lot of baggage because, as we all know, watermelon can be… well… watery. To make it enjoyable as opposed to merely Instagrammable, Best opted to compress it in an air tank along with shots of tequila. The result is crunchy as opposed to mushy, with the melon-ness intensified by the alcohol.
“We named this pizza the Hendrix because Hendrix is crazy, in a good way,” says Best. “Hendrix liked to lace himself with acid before he went out on stage and since we can’t do that, that’s where the tequila comes in. Tequila is a party drink, and this is like eating a pizza that’s more of a party.”
Adding piquancy to the party is a mango habanero sauce that Best developed at his first-ever chef’s job and has been carrying around with him for 40 years. A dousing of maple syrup pairs with the waffle’s brunchy feel while a sprinkling of toasted pecans bestows salty, Southern crunch. Tying up all the flavours in a fragrant green bow are sprigs of fresh cilantro.
Despite, or because, of all the fabulously disparate ingredients in play, the Hendrix is Afro’s most popular pizza.
One of a couple of vegetarian options on the menu, The Whispers – named after the L.A.-based R&B group – also channels 1970s psychedelia, albeit via a medley of shrooms. Cooked down in white wine, garlic and thyme, the succulent mushrooms – button, cremini, portobello and oyster – are slathered with caramelized onions and dolloped with house-made truffle aioli. Crumbled on top, a garlic panko, made with roasted and fresh garlic, thyme, lemon zest and Parmesan, is a textural flavour bomb whose seismic crunch and welcome hits of citrusy zing and umami threaten to steal the show.
Between the Signature and Seasonal “cuts,” the menu offers a lot of choice. However, “for people who have already gone through the menu or find it’s too crazy for them,” there exists a Build-it-Yourself option, where you choose your sauces and toppings, and go to town.
“Some people get crazy with their pizzas, adding 15 toppings” confesses Best. “The only problem with that is that the pizza doesn’t fit in the box.” (For the record, all pizzas come in individual (personal), medium (sharing) and large (party) sizes).
There are also several hearty baked pastas on hand. Although the options – mac and cheese, Alfredo and bolognese – are pretty traditional compared to the pizzas, customers can – and do – individually customize them with toppings such as bacon and fried chicken.
Indeed, despite Afro’s being a chef-centric operation, its already tight community of regulars have a lot of say in what appears on the menu. Recently, one regular introduced Best to his mom’s samosa recipe, which is scheduled to appear in pizza form in the near future.
The basement sake distillery also came about by popular demand after customers were asked if they’d prefer to pair their pizza with sake or beer. As a consequence, carbonated sake-based lemonade and premium nigori will soon be joining the more prosaic likes of Arizona iced tea that currently fill the fridge (while leftover rice will be used to make a gluten-free pizza dough).
Speaking of communities, like a well-fermented dough, Afro’s crew of regulars is expanding all the time. For this reason, come summer, in addition to the little bench out front, there will patio seating for 50, allowing regulars and those just strolling by, to kick back and enjoy Afro’s pizza in its ideally elevated state of hotness, crispness and, yes, (very good) craziness.
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