Garlic fingers is a popular food item throughout Atlantic Canada. Even though it looks like a pizza, garlic fingers are cut in strips or fingers instead of being cut into slices like a regular pizza. The dish consists of pizza dough that is topped with cheese, garlic butter, and parsley. It is baked until the cheese melts, and it can then be additionally topped with dill, vegetables, or pieces of bacon. Garlic fingers are often consumed with regular pizza as a side dish, and they are typically accompanied by dipping sauces such as Donair or marinara. Apart from pizza joints, garlic fingers can be found in many grocery stores.
Despite its name, Hawaiian pizza is a Canadian invention, a classic American-style pie topped with cheese, ham, and pineapple chunks. It was originally created by Sam Panopoulos in Chatham, Ontario in the mid-1960s, when he added pineapple to the dish and started serving it to the customers of his Satellite Restaurant. The customers loved it, and Hawaiian pizza soon made its way to the rest of Canada and the United States of America.
Windsor style-pizza is a unique Canadian pizza originating from Windsor, Ontario. The pizza has a medium-thin crust, and it's most often topped with oregano-spiked tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese that's produced by Galati, canned mushrooms, and sticks of shredded pepperoni, so that every bite of the pizza has the flavor of pepperoni, no matter which part of the pizza you bite into. The toppings always go on top of the cheese, never under it. There's also the option of adding more toppings such as green peppers and bacon. The pizzas are cooked on cornmeal on stone deck ovens, making the crust crispy in the process. According to Windsor's Community Museum, the inventor of this pizza is unknown, but the main contenders for the title are Sam's Pizzeria, Volcano Pizzeria, and Mario's Restaurant. In Windsor, this pizza is used to celebrate all kinds of festive occasions, from birthdays to weddings.
The infamous pizza cake came to life in April of 2014 when a Canadian-based chain Boston Pizza started a campaign called Pizza Game Changers, where the public was called in to vote on the next big thing when it comes to pizza-related products. Pizza cake won the race by miles and since its appearance had people either salivating or shaking their heads in denial. The cake in question is actually made up of multiple layers of pizza that are baked in a pot or a cake pan with tall sides. The recipes vary in the number of pizza layers, ranging from three to six, but the stuffing is always the same; tomato sauce, pepperoni, and heaps of cheese.
Pizza-ghetti is a massive, carbohydrate-heavy combination plate consisting of a personal-sized pizza cut in half, served right next to a generous pile of spaghetti smothered in a sweet, meat-based tomato sauce. Arriving at the table on a wide platter, the components are meant to be eaten in tandem, with customers frequently wrapping the long pasta strands around slices of the melted cheese before taking a bite. The pasta portion of the dish relies on a highly specific style of meat sauce unique to local snack bars, leaning much sweeter than a standard ragu. Ground beef simmers for hours with finely diced celery, onions, and green bell peppers, heavily seasoned with unexpected warming spices like cinnamon, clove, and allspice. This thick red gravy is ladled over soft, boiled spaghetti noodles. The pizza almost always follows an "all-dressed" blueprint. A thick, doughy crust is layered with sweet tomato paste, covered in rounds of cured pepperoni, scattered with sliced mushrooms and green peppers, and finally buried under a heavy blanket of low-moisture mozzarella. The origins of this dual-starch platter trace back to the mid-20th century across the province of Quebec. During this era, waves of immigrants opened small roadside restaurants, known locally as casse-croûtes, aiming to feed the local working class. To accommodate families who could not decide between ordering a pie and a bowl of pasta, these restaurateurs simply combined the two on a single plate. Over the decades, it evolved from a pragmatic menu compromise into a beloved regional staple found in nearly every casual eatery across the province. While the side-by-side presentation is typical, distinct variations merge the two components entirely. Some establishments load the cooked, sauce-covered spaghetti directly onto the raw pizza dough, covering the pasta completely with mozzarella before baking the entire structure in a high-temperature oven. This yields a dense, layered pie in which the noodles steam inside a shell of baked cheese and bread. Other kitchens swap the standard meat sauce for a creamy Alfredo or a spicy arrabbiata to coat the noodles, completely altering the flavor profile. Certain late-night spots even use sliced pizza as a makeshift taco shell, folding the hot crust around the spaghetti so you can eat the entire meal with one hand.
Pictou County pizza is a unique variety of pizza originating from Nova Scotia, characterized by a somewhat thicker, chewy dough, a spicy brown sauce, and Halifax-made Brothers' pepperoni. The pizza is so popular that it is even shipped frozen all over Canada. Every year, there is a Pictou County pizza competition, so that the locals can find out which pizza restaurant is the best. It is recommended to pair the dish with a cold beer on the side.
TasteAtlas food rankings are based on the ratings of the TasteAtlas audience, with a series of mechanisms that recognize real users and that ignore bot,
nationalist or local patriotic ratings, and give additional value to the ratings of users that the system recognizes as knowledgeable.
For the “Top 6 Canadian Pizzas” list until July 15, 2026, 753 ratings were recorded, of which 632 were recognized by the system as legitimate.
TasteAtlas Rankings should not be seen as the final global conclusion about food. Their purpose is to promote excellent local foods,
instill pride in traditional dishes, and arouse curiosity about dishes you haven’t tried.
