House of Georgie Sorento’s
211 Gilmour (at Elgin) – (613) 238-3333
Date of order: March 2nd, 2009
Cost: ~$49.00 for two large and a small
Ottawa has a rich and colourful history. From full-on riots and political assassinations to the Tulip Festival, there are a lot of stories to be told (or that have been told) in this town. Touching on the subject of a previous review, our most recent pizza adventure found us once again on Gilmour St. Not only that, but we were again admiring some of the finer points of the city, although this time it was from the perspective of books.
The Ottawa Public Library’s Main Branch is located at Metcalfe and Laurier. The boxy, brutalist structure is a relic of the 70s but it’s a pretty cool building (even if it did replace what appears to have been a much nicer building, the Carnegie Library, of which only the stained glass window remains…). Of course, with libraries, the inside is where the fun lies. This branch happens to have the Ottawa Room, which is a special room filled with photos, records, maps and books all about Ottawa. Taking advantage of their Monday evening hours, we made the first of what we hope will be many visits to this room. We (mostly) had fun perusing books like 1904’s “The Hub and the Spokes.”
Of course, while we have history we also have the present to deal with. Since we had hungry mouths to feed, we decided to visit another local landmark, House of Georgie Sorento’s. The draw here is their gravy pizza, but we didn’t go for that on this day. We ordered three pizzas (two large with toppings and a small plain) and waited in the small shop. A map of downtown Ottawa and an aerial photograph of Carleton University provided a bit of entertainment. After a 15-20 minute wait, we happily collected the steaming boxes and drove them home in an increasingly fogged up car.
Upon our arrival, we gathered the troops and some utensils and dug in. We first tried the plain pie and then moved on to the others (pepperoni and vegetarian).
The cheese was thick and gooey, which meant a knife was useful for dividing up the slices. It was a little salty with a nice cheesy taste. It was pretty much standard fare, but satisfying.
We found the somewhat thick crust to be soft and chewy, almost bread-like. We would have preferred a bit more crunch and a bit more flavour, but it did the job.
As you may have learned from our past reviews, we usually find the sauce to be a let-down. Not so this time. While we wouldn’t say “We’ve found it!” we will certainly say that the sauce had a nice sweet and spicy flavour that complemented the pizza very nicely. It’s definitely one of the better sauces we’ve tried.
All in all it was a fun night of old and new. We hope to pay a few more visits to the Ottawa Room and we’ll certainly go back to House of Georgie Sorento’s. We’re thinking we’ll stop in for a slice of gravy pizza on a summer day and follow it up with a visit to Pure Gelato…


