Vegan Practically

I’m not sure if you love pizza as much as I do, but it is up there with my favourite foods. In 2011 when I first started to eat vegan, cheese was a challenge and therefore pizza was a challenge. Back then, I substituted hummus for cheese with reasonably good results. But it just wasn’t the same.

Well, in 2025 I can safely say that those days are well in the past. This summer, I have eaten vegan pizza from four different places and they’ve all been good. Here’s my report.

Rise Above Pizza and Wings in Hamilton, Ontario. Even though this was the most recent, I’m going to start with it because it’s the only fully vegan establishment on the list. I met Shelley for dinner there last week on my way back to Toronto from an appointment in London. It was a good pit-stop, and an opportunity to try a place Shelley told me about quite some time ago. Here’s what we had:

• a small (though it didn’t seem all that small to us) sesame ginger slaw. Delicious blend of shredded carrots and red cabbage with chickpeas and a yummy sesame ginger dressing. The toasted sesame seeds added a nice touch. I would definitely order this again.
• a larger order of seitan wings. In a large you get 12 wings, and can order two different kinds. I got the Classic BBQ and the Spicy Buffalo. These are good-sized pieces of seitan tossed in sauces, both of which tasted as you’d expect them to taste. The Spicy Buffalo were quite spicy. I ended up bringing home most of the wings because I wanted to leave space for pizza.

• A personal-sized loaded pineapple pizza for me. This one has pineapple, red onion, vegan pepperoni, vegan bacon, red onion and vegan cheese. The crust and the sauce and the pineapple were really good. I should have built my own because I was never a fan of pizza with meat on it, and I’ve not really warmed up to the plant-based pizza meats either. Still, I enjoyed my pizza that night and the next day for lunch and for dinner. So it went a long way.
• A personal-sized creamy garlic and pesto pizza for Shelley. The ingredients on this are: Creamy garlic base, with pesto dots, broccoli, black olives, mushrooms and seitan bacon crumble. It looked good and Shelley said it was delicious. I can’t eat too much garlic so I didn’t try it.

• A personal-sized bacon triple cheeseburger pizza to-go that I took home to Diane. This one is described as “loaded with house made marinara, bacon strips, cheddar, creamy mozza, crumbled burger, and shredded mozza.” Again, I didn’t try this one (because in my view if I want a cheeseburger I’ll have a cheeseburger), but Diane said it was very good and tasted like a cheeseburger.
• Asteroids, which are basically little pieces of fried pizza dough tossed in cinnamon sugar and served with a frosting-like dip. They were tasty, especially fresh out of the fryer when still warm. I ordered them not because I was still hungry but because I felt as if I had to do my bit for the blog and try something sweet while I was there.
• Cherry Piezerotti, which is a cherry pie offered up in panzerotti style. They serve it with frosting on the side that you can drizzle over when you’re ready. I brought that home at Diane’s request and she reported that it was yummy.

Overall, I recommend Rise Above, though be prepared to pay “speciality” prices. It’s not a cheap outing. Still, I’ll go again, and next time I’m going to get the ginger slaw and build my own pizza.

Pi Co in Toronto. I saw Pi Co all over the place in Toronto (apparently there are also locations in BC) when I first got here and thought it was pie, not pizza, so I wasn’t tempted to try it. Then one day I learned it was pizza and that they had vegan options. It has since become a stand-by when I want to splurge on pizza (it’s not cheap, but they sometimes have good specials).

What I like about Pi Co is that you can specify your crust (regular or gluten free for a $4 premium), your sauce, your cheese (unfortunately the vegan cheese is $2 extra), and your toppings. Other than paying $2 extra for the vegan cheese, you don’t pay more for toppings, no matter how many toppings you choose. I am a topping fanatic, and they have a long list of vegan toppings. So that works for me. Their 11″ thin crust pizzas are delicious. I haven’t tried any of their other menu items and don’t know if they’re vegan. But you can’t go wrong with their vegan pizzas.

Pizza Nova is a chain that has been around for a long time. Word on the street among the vegan community in London was that their vegan pizza was really good. But I never got around to trying it. Since PiCo is a bit pricey, we decided we wanted to find an “ordinary” pizza place for when we wanted pizza but didn’t want to pay as much. Enter Pizza Nova. A large pizza with vegan cheese and three toppings is about $20. They also have plant-based “chicken” bites, which I haven’t tried, and some salads (ask about the dressing). I have the added bonus of having a Pizza Nova on the way home from the Y. So it’s an easy quick option for cheap and tasty take-out.

Juna in Haliburton is an Italian restaurant on the main street that has vegan cheese for its pizza (and a vegan rigatoni bolognese). I wrote about it in my last “Travelling while vegan” post. I had a margherita pizza, simple but good. Its pricepoint is about the same as Rise Above and Pi Co. But, as with them, the quality is there. It’s an eat-in only restaurant with a small, elegant dining room and a really pleasant outdoor space at the back.

So that’s my pizza report. Gone are the days when, as a vegan, you had to struggle to find good pizza. Now good, even great, pizza is easy at hand.