Amelio’s

Sometimes you just don’t want to cook. Don’t feel guilty about it. For me, it’s usually because I’m already hungry or tired, and so it’s good to have a couple favorite restaurants in the back pocket ready for emergency booking.

 

Amelio’s is one of my favorite Montreal institutions. It’s cheap, it’s quick (but you can linger as long as you don’t make eye contact with the people waiting in line), it’s cash-only, bring your own wine, and, better yet, at the corner of Milton and Ste-Famille, it’s on the walk home from work. 

 

The place is a family run restaurant that keeps its Italian accented menu lean, focused just on some submarine sandwiches, a selection of pasta, and the pizza. If you come here, it’s not for subs. They don’t even serve fries. You come for the pizza and nothing else.

 

I don’t begrudge people who trend towards a thin crust wafer covered in clever tapas-like toppings, but Amelio’s has perfected the down and dirty thick crust, saucy pie I love. No matter your choice, the toppings are generous and the cheese is an awesome salty alchemical blend that changes flavors as it cools.

 

When we go, we go for what we’re craving, which we’ve whittled down to a large Italian sausage pizza topped with extra hot peppers. It does the trick every time. The cheese is so good, the crust so good, the sauce, just so good, you don’t want to lose yourself in more topping flavor. Over the years we’ve gone from all dressed, to vegetarian, to each with bacon, and each with bacon and hot peppers and sausage. Just too complicated. The parts are so good, you want them to shine.

 

Until this week, when we added bacon. And, man, if our standard wasn’t even the better for it.

 

Damn you, bacon, damn you.