Eat with Sharon

I may have previously mentioned somewhere that I LOVE neapolitan style pizza. Famoso is a classic, Blaze Pizza is always good and even Rosso Pizzeria and places like Vaticano Cucina offer these amazing thin crust pizzas as well. But more recently, Ripe Tomato Pizza has joined the pizzeria scene in #YEG. Originally from Calgary, Ripe Tomato Pizza on Ellerslie Road + 50th St is the first to open its doors here in Edmonton.

Similar to Blaze pizza, Ripe Tomato Pizza offers made-to-order pizzas which are cooked in their specialty pizza oven. They offer quick eats whether you choose to take it to go or dine in. With Blaze Pizza offering the same type of deal, it’s hard not to compare the two in this review. So, my short review… stylish interior, great concept but the food and service itself fell short of my expectations.

Their menu mainly consists of pizzas and sides (soup/salad etc.). They also offer dessert and options to make a combo or kids meal. The first thing I noticed was that the menu had no build your own option. A bit disappointing since this is my go-to at blaze. However, I was optimistic in trying their menu creations; their speciality pizzas sounded pretty appealing.

The pizzas come in 2 sizes – 9″ or 12″ and for some extra $, you can make it a combo with a side and a drink. The menu is a little bit deceiving though… it says you can “create a combo and save $1.45″. I somehow only read the “$1.45” and didn’t realize that it actually cost me 6 dollars to upgrade our meals until I had walked away from the till. The advertising really gets to ya! Talk about being too eager to eat lol. I also noticed that the price points were a bit higher than Blaze Pizza.

For food, we ordered the Supreme pizza and the Truffle Mushroom pizza. Although the dough itself was a bit too thin for my liking, the Truffle Mushroom Pizza ($10.45/9″) was a hit. It had truffle oil, smoked mozzarella, mushrooms, parmesan and arugula. Similar to other mushroom pizzas I’ve tried, all these toppings worked really well together (as they usually do) and I thought the pizza tasted great. The employee suggested trying it with honey and surprisingly, the honey really enhanced the truffle oil and savouriness of the mushrooms and parmesan. I loved the smoked mozza flavour in it too. Not bad for 10ish bucks. My bf and I agreed that this was the better pick of the two pizzas.

On the other hand, the Supreme Pizza (9.45) was not great.. compared to the truffle mushroom pizza, it was actually kind of horrible. It had pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, roasted red peppers and fior de latte – sounds all good right? Unfortunately, no. The meats on this pizza tasted and looked like low quality ingredients – the pepperoni was small and tasted like the ones from snackable lunch boxes that I remember trying as a kid. The sausage had little flavour and seemed like it was just thrown onto the pizza. The sauce was bland and overall, it was just not a good pizza.. Definitely not living up to their idea of fresh, quality and authentic ingredients. We were pretty disappointed.

We did make these two pizzas a combo so we also got a chance to try the Caprese Salad and Ripe Tomato Soup. The Caprese Salad ($3.45) was probably my favourite thing of the meal, aside from the truffle mushroom pizza. It was made up of fresh bocconcini, grape tomatoes, basil, mixed greens and topped with salt, pepper, olive oil and a lime wedge. The salad was simple – fresh and tasty but there’s not much to it as I could probably make this salad at home. I say that it was my favourite thing because I am a sucker for a fresh caprese salad – I love the combo of mozza, tomatoes and basil. My only complaint was that the portion was tiny… it’s in such a small cup?!

The Ripe Tomato Soup ($3.45) was also decent but nothing extraordinary. It was more runny than I was expecting and I’d say that I prefer the tomato bisque at Famoso over it. They provided us with some “pizza dough bites” on the side as an alternative to crackers.

However… I would opt out of these bites next time because they were really oily and not even cooked fully throughout. We were astonished to see that the dough was still raw in the middle! Once we realized, these were put to the side and we ate the soup alone.

Aside from the regular pop drinks, I also thought that Ripe Tomato Pizza had a pretty unique drink selection for what they are. I don’t see many quick serve places carrying San Pellegrino etc. We actually tried some glass bottle sodas ($3.05) and had mixed reactions. The sugar cane cola was too sweet for our liking, but the root beer was good!

In terms of service, it was quick and friendly… we did have some issues with our order but I figure with a new business, complications are bound to happen as a new team is starting out!

So all in all, my experience here was alright. There were more cons than pros for me but I think that Ripe Tomato Pizza is a nice addition to the growing Southeast area of Edmonton. They bring a pizzeria option closer to home for those that are South of the Henday… Would I return? Not any time soon. Perhaps it was the pizzas we ordered or maybe it was just an off day but this meal unfortunately didn’t hit the spot for me. I came in excited but left a little disappointed. In comparison to other places in the city, it falls short of what I would expect when I go for this style of pizza. Ripe Tomato Pizza wouldn’t be my first pick for this type of meal and I feel that I’m better off driving a little further to satisfy the pizza craving, for a cheaper price.

Regardless of my experience, I wish the business owners all the best in their new location. Let me know what you think if you get a chance to try it out!

Ripe Tomato Pizza
5051 Ellerslie Road, Edmonton