FORNO CULTURA (609 King West, at Portland, 416 603-8305, fornocultura.com, @fornocultura) Open Tuesday to Saturday 7 am to 9:30 pm, Sunday 9 am to 6 pm. Closed Monday, holidays. Unlicensed. Access: seven steps at door, washrooms on same floor. Rating: NNNN
You could say that Andrea Mastrandrea has flour in his veins. But, then, he also has it in his hair and likely in his lungs as well.
A third-generation baker, Mastrandrea grew up “baking bread in a pizza oven,” as he puts it, as part of the family business, first at Weston and Rogers Roads and later in Woodbridge. You don’t get much more Italian than that!
After an association with the short-lived Alimento at King and Spadina, the one-time architect launched the far less formal Forno Cultura bakery café a few blocks west in April, a spot so casual it doesn’t have tables or chairs.
But there’s all that fab bread, and lots of it. It forms the basis of Cultura’s hefty panino del giorno (all $9.50), like slow-roasted porchetta and crackling paired with nutty Auricchio cheese and raw arugula on hollowed-out sourdough filoni ($5 loaf). Circular Genovese-style loaves of grape-studded ciabatta ($5.50) get stuffed with appropriately fatty mortadella, sliced ripe tomato and a tangle of bitter greens, while cheesy croissants layered with ham ($2.75) make an easy lunch on the go.
Besides bread sticks (30¢ each), bread crumbs ($2.50/250 ml) and wedges of eggy chocolate bread pudding ($3), you’ll find sturdily crusted pizza slices in the Roman style spread with family-recipe San Marzano tomato sauce and dressed with traditional toppings like local tomatoes and fior di latte, purple onion and fennel, or spicy house-made sausage with roasted red pepper (all $3.50).
Avoiding wheat like almost everyone else? Head straight to the gluten-free frittata with shaved fennel and rapini ($2.50) and the chocolate Torta Caprese sold by the slice ($3.40).
Has Mastrandrea heard about the nearby and very similar Sud Forno (see review, page 24) from the team behind Terroni?
“They’re good friends of mine, and we always used to talk about bread and maybe doing something together,” he says. “So I’m not surprised they’ve opened a bakery.”
How would he compare the two?
“They’re like Architectural Digest. Everything’s perfect. We’re real life.”
stevend@nowtoronto.com | @stevendaveynow
