A Toronto restaurateur who made a name for himself with his French bistro is now pivoting to pizza, but French flavours won’t be far away.
When Ben Gundy, chef-owner at Taverne Tamblyn, decided to put an end to restaurant service at the Danforth East bistro in March of 2025, pizza wasn’t necessarily at the top of his mind as a next move.
At the time, amid mounting financial pressures and the already thin margins endemic to the restaurant industry, Ben’s idea was to shift Taverne Tamblyn from a full-service restaurant to a prepared foods-centred business, where fans of the bistro’s menu of French cuisine could pick up staples and eat them at home.
He later began hosting a Friday night bistro series, where he’d serve up a rotating prix fixe menu out of the restaurant space weekly for those who simply could not live without Taverne Tamblyn in their lives. (We don’t blame them.)
While the business model overhaul was intended to provide financial relief, Ben quickly found that it served a secondary purpose: it opened up time and space for him to begin experimenting in the kitchen, providing a space for imagination that’s not quite there when you’re cranking out menu items Monday through Sunday.
On a trip to the neighbourhood’s iconic Danforth Pizza House, Ben had a lightbulb moment.
“I began to imagine what a pizza made by a French chef might look like,” Ben says. “I wanted to explore ingredients and combinations that would reflect both tradition and creativity.”
He immediately got to work, extensively researching French pizzerias and restlessly developing and testing new recipes.
The result is French Pizza, Ben’s new concept available for takeout every Tuesday, Wednesday,and Thursday between 5 and 9:30 p.m., as of the time of publication.
“I really enjoy the Friday evening Bistro series I have on offer and don’t want to change that,” Ben told us explaining the chosen days of operation for the new concept.
It officially launched on July 8 and has already drummed up plenty of buzz, particularly among Taverne Tamblyn’s devoted fans, but has also been earning its fair share of outside attention thanks to Ben’s uniquely French-forward approach to the Italian dish.
The simultaneously crisp and chewy dough, for example, is based on miche, a type of French country bread, and is crafted using an organic whole wheat starter that dates back three years.
Ben’s distinctly French touch really shines through when it comes to the pizza toppings, though. The tarte flambée features caramelized onions, fromage blanc, gruyere, bacon and fresh rosemary, while le bleu centres blue cheese, with walnuts, pear, béchamel, wildflower honey and chives in supporting roles.
If you don’t typically get too adventurous with your pizza order, there’s also the classic l’’méricain, simply topped with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and beef pepperoni. With months of recipe testing put into every single pie, though, it might just be worth your while to step out of your comfort zone.
“This was a true labour of love,” says Ben. “It took two months of testing to get it right, and I’m incredibly proud of the final result.”
Taverne Tamblyn’s French pizzas are currently available at 1426 Danforth Ave. for takeout by walk-in or call-ahead, and you can even order them on Uber Eats. La vie est belle, indeed.
