Mangia & Bevi, 260 King Street East

Tucked into a side street (not actually on King St. East), is the lovely Magia e Bevi.  The restaurant is a true trattoria, in a loft building, with families, kids on the go.  The ceilings are high, exposed duct work, and rotating art work on the walls. I like.

The service was excellent.  There were only two servers on the floor, and a bus boy, but they were all really friendly and helpful.  Our food was perfectly timed. We had a salad, then an appropriate amount of time for digestion before our pizzas came. It's rare to find that in Toronto.  The bread they served was hot and crusty.

We had the mista salad, with the house vinaigrette.  There was nothing special about the salad, but then again, it is only mixed greens, so how special can you make that?


The pizza menu is huge, there are over 30 pizzas, and they all sound fantastic. This did make choosing quite hard.  The prices range between $10-$17.

The Italian orders Piccante pizza and I have the Trentina, both of which are listed under the "original" title, so we're looking at eating pizzas created by the owners. I like this--it reminds me of Napoli, where each shop had pizzas that were house specials, unique to that shop and only found there.

After the appropriate amount of time (about 10 minutes) after our salad is done, the pizzas arrive.  My usual complaint is that no one puts olive oil on top of the pizza.  I ask for some, and the Italian asks for some hot olive oil (like the Piccante isn't enough?).  What he gets is a sauce called "Bomba Italiana" (which you can purchase there).  The ingredients are listed as: pepperoncini, sun dried tomatoes, eggplant, olive oil, sunflower oil, mixed mushrooms, porcini mushrooms, basil and salt and it is excellent. No matter what the cost, do yourself a favor and purchase a bottle (it's about $8).

The Italian boyfriend says his pizza is excellent, the crust is perfect, the sausage is homemade and the sweet, red onions perfectly compliment the spices on the pizza. I find that for me, the speck taste is too strong, but I'm still pleased with my pizza. Perhaps I have forgotten how strong speck tastes.

We had dinner, drinks and a salad for under $50.

Highly recommended, 8/10.