It’s a little dangerous to talk food at 11 a.m. at an award-winning pizzeria. 

I took on that challenge with my visit to Son of a Peach Pizzeria in the historic Village Square in Burlington, Ont., in May where I sat down with our latest Chef of the Year Bart Nadherny, who co-owns and -operates the business with his partner in life, Kimberley.

Amid the tantalizing aromas and happy buzz of the Peach’s open kitchen, Nadherny and I talked about running a well-oiled pizza operation. Somehow the conversation always came back to the innovative chef’s love of pizza and the high-quality ingredients that set his creations apart.

Our wide-ranging conversation touched on the importance of maintaining integrity in your product, the need to maintain a steady rhythm in the workflow and the pizzeria’s strategy for handling guests’ special requests to customize their pizzas.

We also talked about the impact of winning a pizza competition and how it can stoke staff morale. 

On that subject, in an email to me after the competition the chef recalled his reaction to the win in Montreal in April. “It was a total out of body experience. I think it validated everyone’s hard work and efforts that go into what we do at the Peach that makes our pizza special.”

Nadherny’s winning pizza was made with roasted garlic ricotta base, whole milk and virgin mozzarella, overnight-slow-roasted pork shoulder, house-made peach barbecue sauce (normally he uses fresh local peaches from the nearby Niagara region) and generously garnished with fresh basil and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

Nadherny’s description revealed his philosophy of pizza: “The dough is such a labour of love and provides us the foundation for all our pizza creativity. We really like a thin crust, well baked pizza with lots of caramelization, airiness and firmness so that the weight of the ingredients and flavours can be supported. It’s a little sour and a little salty. We thoughtfully consider all the ingredients and the roles that they play in the final product.”  

The Peach opened in May 2014 with just 21 seats and proved so popular that within six months they completed an ambitious renovation, expanding to open a second side housing more seating and, in 2018 – and after two years in independent operation – the Sunshine Doughnut Company. 

They now have capacity for 40 people inside and 60 outside in the summer season. 

The business is named for the chef’s mother, whose nickname growing up was “Peach.” Although she passed away in 2011, her loving presence continues to be felt in the restaurant, which is frequented by his and Kim’s young son Woody.

Nadherny is a classically trained chef who earned an associate of science in the culinary arts from the Culinary Institute of America in 2004 and has a masters degree in slow food and advanced gastronomy from Instituto Superiore di Gastronomia, known as Jesi, in eastern Italy. 

Nadherny gives the hardworking crew of about 70 employees a lot of credit for working together to manage the peaks and valleys of each shift. He took several of his staff to the competition in Montreal and it boosted morale. 

“I can definitely tell that there’s an excitement in the air, and we proudly show off our plaque that we won there. It’s nice to have a platform . . . to recognize the staff and all the work that they put into making pizza awesome, it’s a lot of labour that goes into it. A lot of the jobs are kind of repetitive, and being able to keep the quality level up and keep the interest in what we make is definitely a challenge.”

‘No substitutions’

The menu includes carefully crafted pizza recipes like the Pear and Walnut featuring olive oil, poached pears, goronzola, walnuts and local wild honey, and The Burlingtonian featuring the house tomato sauce, ezzo dry cured pepperoni, wood-smoked bacon, herb, garlic-and-wine-roasted wild mushrooms.

So when staff get special requests, there is a dilemma. They want to make customers happy, but the recipe changes and requests for half-and-half pizzas definitely slow down the workflow for staff. 

“It’s a busy time during the shop and all it takes is one pizza to kind of like, derail the train a little, right? It’s more about practicality. They’ve learned the recipes, not to mention what you put in.”

Now, instead of accommodating substitutions, they offer a build-your-own pizza, the most expensive on the menu. 

Their open kitchen is a drawing card, he said. “People watch and ask questions. Through these interactions, everybody on the pizza team starts to understand the ideology behind the products, the sourcing of them and why we use them.”

“I put so much pressure on the pizza where every ingredient needs to stand on its own. We get fresh pineapples in. We use these beautiful 30 per cent milk fat logs of cheese that we slice by hand to get a nice, even layer, the mushrooms we cut up five or six different varieties and roast them all individually. So there’s lots of integrity in the individual products. And then, you know, we’re on a sliding scale of what we are and are not willing to do to keep up the integrity of the product. 

“For example, we’re trying to re-create this awesome barbecue sauce that we took this victory on with. And it’s like, what do you do? You can buy, obviously, barbecue sauce. You can buy peaches. Or instead do you sweat the onions, sweat the garlic, add the peaches in, cook it down, add your tomatoes, all your spices? So we make it in house. Those are the things that support a slightly higher food cost and slightly higher menu cost.”

The innovative chef’s love of cooking was spawned by his geography. “Southern Ontario, the Golden Horseshoe, has the nicest weather for three months, where you see all these things come into season, and it’s like, go, go, go time. And then it’s over. So being able to think about that, harness that. And then also, you know, with the spoils, how does that translate to a middle-of-the-winter menu and like, an early spring menu? Going through culinary school, working all these restaurants, you want to be fresh, you want to be seasonal, but you also have to be creative.”