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Raff's Pizza
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At Raff’s Pizza, there’s a secret ingredient to the team’s success. That ingredient, the team would have you believe, can be found in the signature tomato sauce that they casually dollop onto a good portion of the menu’s standout pies. But look closer, and you’ll see that the real secret ingredient is founder and chef Simon Vickerson’s unbridled enthusiasm. A person who bubbles with passion — for pizza, life, just having a good time — Vickerson is the talented pizzaiolo livening up Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood with his casual fare.
Simon Vickerson has come a long way. From peddling pizzas to well-lubricated clubbers in the wee hours of the morning, he’s built Raff’s Pizza into a viable business, now housed in The Annex Hotel.
“I used to be a bartender on Queen Street,” he explains. “We would get off at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., and be hungry and nothing was really open. So I would go to my place and make a bunch of pizzas for people.” The ritual of feeding his nearest and dearest took a turn when Vickerson’s pizza production proved too much for his friends to finish. “We would run back to Queen Street, and hand them out to people. It was super random,” he laughs, fully aware of his business’s dubious origin story.
“People started asking if we’d like a booth at markets. Do we cater weddings? We said ‘yes.’ We said ‘yes’ to everything everyone asked us then figured out how to do it later,” he admits.
Despite its devoted following, Raff’s Pizza didn’t have a home until February, 2024. It was then that Vickerson was approached by the team at The Annex Hotel, a 24-room, boutique property owned by Perfect Fill Hotel Group Ltd.
“The Annex wanted to have some food,” explains Vickerson. “They asked us to do a two-day pop-up. I put it on Instagram, and that weekend went crazy. That was really fun.” After that, he adds, “they asked if we wanted to stay.”
For Mack Saunders, director of brand experience for the hotel, Raff’s Pizza was a perfect fit. “We wanted to find someone who had entrepreneurial spirit but also had a really good product that would help us enhance our hotel experience,” he explains. “When I met Simon originally, he kind of checked all of those boxes. He made great food, and had a great personality.”
Named for Vickerson’s Nonna Raffaella, Raff’s Pizza trades in hearty, homemade Italian fare. The menu is straightforward — there are simple snacks, seven pizzas, a few salads and a handful of desserts — and everything is made from scratch.
“Our pizza is 75% New York-style, 25% Neapolitan. We use Neapolitan ingredients, OO flour and the sourdough starter, but we use an electric oven. It’s not like the wood-fired that gives that soft middle. It’s crunchier.”
As for that sauce? “It’s her recipe,” explains Vickerson, crediting Nonna Raff for one of the building blocks of his business. “She has a secret ingredient in it that our whole family knows about,” he adds. “It’s a very guarded secret. I didn’t realize how strange that was.”
Tangy and sweet, it’s a flawless backdrop to zippy, charred cups of Ezzo pepperoni and pillowy blobs of fresh ricotta. It’s a perfect accent to the team’s crust, which is tender with the right amount of chew and is subtly fragranced with yeast. “We use a starter that isn’t from her village but it is about 150 years old,” shares Vickerson.
Open daily, between 4 p.m. and 11 p.m. (and also available for delivery), Raff’s Pizza transforms The Annex Hotel’s lobby into a bustling spot. Servers balance pies the size of bicycle tires, while guests nurse cocktails at the bar or descend into worn leather couches as they wait for sustenance to arrive.
Before it does, a tight list of cocktails, beer and wine keeps them from the brink. “We love natural wines,” affirms Saunders. “We try to keep the list short, and rotate them pretty frequently,” he adds, explaining that the bottle you enjoyed on your last visit may well be gone on your next.
There are also classic cocktails, from a Paper Plane to an Espresso Martini, to sip on. “Our cocktails are simple and beautiful, to match the ethos of a great pizza. You’ll recognize a lot of the drinks we have, some have a small twist, but for the most part they’re classics.”
One notable exception, is an original creation dubbed The Profesor. With Profesor Mezcal, Aperol, lime and agave, it’s smoky and intense, with enough sweetness to smooth out any rough edges.
With pies taking about 11 minutes to cook (they’re first fired in a 700-degree oven, then moved to a second one for a final blast of 800-degree heat), your first round won’t be finished before food appears.
Whether it takes the form of a 13- or 18-inch classic Pepperoni, a gloriously piquant Vodka or the elegant French Fig, it will be blistered and bubbly, crisp with a tender core running through its cornicione, and judiciously garnished. Instead of smothering his pies, Vickerson tops them almost to their edge, yet evenly and without ever overwhelming the crust.
You'll want to order a side of dipping sauce to ensure no crumb is left uneaten. "I’ve always been a fan of dip for a crust. It’s like a breadstick essentially. We’re trying to replicate that," says Vickerson, explaining that he adds German bread flour to his dough to make a thicker crust. Choose one of the four dips — Truffle Oil, Hot Honey, Spicy P Hot Sauce or Creamy Garlic — and have at it.
Dressed with lemon vinaigrette and Parm, Arugula Salad is a standard you’ll enjoy if upping your intake of greens ranks high on your list of daily goals.
In addition to the regular pizza menu, “we’ll do a special fairly often,” says Vickerson. “We try to do a new, fun pizza every week.” Created in collaboration with other local food businesses, past specials have included a hot-sauce glazed barbecue chicken pie made with the team from Aunt Lucy’s Burgers. Though he’s mum on details, Vickerson hints at another upcoming collab with meat mecca, Hot Pork.
Pizza isn’t a food that needs much marketing. It’s the type of appealingly carb-heavy go-to that’s almost universally adored — no matter the audience, the time of day, or the season. As Saunders says, “it’s a really good, homey meal. Paired with a great glass of wine or cocktail, it’s a great vibe.” Simple? Sure. But at Raff’s Pizza and The Annex Hotel, the team understands that, sometimes, that’s the ultimate indulgence.
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