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Willibald Pizza is a slice-and-pie shop on George Street North in downtown Galt — the second location of the Willibald brand, which started as a craft distillery in Ayr in 2017. The menu carries ten 18-inch pies, four dips, and a full bar of cocktails, draft beer, and wine. Dough is cold-fermented for five days. Slices are available daily from 11:30 AM to 4 PM, and dine-in runs the rest of the day. Pies run in the low-to-mid thirties; dips are $2.50 each. Open Wednesday through Sunday, closed Monday and Tuesday. The shop has been open since November 2025, with full dine-in following a liquor license approval in early 2026. No delivery. No gluten-free. No reservations yet.
For Willibald, the Cambridge pizza shop started as a joke. Brian McCourt — head chef, born in Dublin, a lifelong pizza head whose earliest food memory is a pizza delivered by motorcycle in childhood — had spent years across the Waterloo Region culinary scene, working at Wildcraft, Bauer Kitchen, The Rich Uncle, and Graffiti Market before he decided he wanted back in the kitchen. The Willibald team at the Ayr farm — co-owners Cam Formica, Jordan van der Heyden, and Nolan Jordan van der Heyden, who had built a distillery, brewery, and restaurant on a single property since 2017 — were turning guests away because pizza demand at the Farm was bursting at the seams. McCourt joked about opening a pizza shop. Two weeks later, the Willibald team came back and asked if he was serious. He was. The previous tenant of 135 George Street North wasn't renewing their lease. That's how Willibald Pizza got built.
The dough is the diagnostic. Willibald's pies use local organic flour, fermented in cold storage for five days before they meet the oven — long enough that the dough develops a complexity and elasticity that fast-fermented doughs can't reach. The structure that comes out is thin and crisp on the bottom, with a rising crust that's full but inside is light and airy, not fat or doughy. That distinction matters: a poorly made NY-style pie reads as bread with toppings; a well-made one reads as crust. McCourt makes well-made crust. Up to 250 pies leave the oven on Fridays and Saturdays, and the shop has sold out on a few nights already. They are expanding the walk-in to keep up.
The menu carries ten 18-inch pies and rotates a smaller subset through the slice format during daytime hours. Bee-Sting is the spicy-honey signature: nduja, chilies, fennel pollen, and basil over mozzarella and tomato sauce, finished with honey — sweet against the nduja heat. Hot Honey Soppressata runs the cured-meat hot-honey variation with fior di latte and grana padano. Spicy Vodka Roni layers pepperoni and jalapeño on vodka and tomato sauce with hot honey at the close — the Roni meets the Bee-Sting in one pie. Sausage & Rapini is the chef's Italian-American flagship at the top price tier: fennel sausage, rapini, peperu peppers, lemon whipped ricotta, mozzarella, and tomato. Chicken Spinach carries the smoked-chicken-and-pancetta white-cream slot with spinach, fontina, and black pepper, and also rotates as the dine-in Feature Pie. Funghi is the mushroom-and-truffle white with confit garlic, tarragon aioli, and goat cheese. Roni is the foundation — pepperoni, mozzarella, oregano, tomato sauce — and the cheapest pie on the board. Vodka is the vegetarian vodka pie with fior di latte and grana padano. Fromaggio is the four-cheese red. Tomato Stracciatella finishes a vegetarian tomato-and-fresh-cheese pie with semi-dried tomatoes, stracciatella, and basil. Four dips — garlic, chili crisp, gochujang ranch, lemon basil — are $2.50 each and worth more than one across a pie order.
Four of ten pies are vegetarian: Vodka, Fromaggio, Funghi, and Tomato Stracciatella. There is currently no plant-based pizza on the menu. For gluten-free diners, Willibald is not the answer: the shop's own FAQ states this explicitly, and there are no immediate plans for a gluten-free crust. Strict celiacs should look elsewhere. The shop now runs a full bar — cocktails, draft beer, and a white-and-red wine list — alongside the food, having waited out the liquor license process the way an alcohol-company-first brand felt it had to.
135 George Street North used to be the Old Galt Bottle Shop, and Willibald moved into the building rather than gutting it — old brick walls and the markings of past tenants are left exposed by design. Toronto designer Joel Malkin worked with co-owner Cam Formica, who calls himself a sucker for nostalgia, to build the brand identity around classic Italian-American neighbourhood pizzeria signals: handwritten cursive lettering, checkerboard patterns, Pizza Hut-inspired stained-glass light shades. The room reads as somewhere you have been before, even if you have not. Wednesday through Sunday only — closed Monday and Tuesday, no reservations yet, no delivery, sometimes sold out before close. Worth knowing about as a Galt resident; worth the drive from elsewhere in Waterloo Region. The joke landed.
Willibald's pies use local organic flour, fermented in cold storage for five days before they meet the oven — long enough that the dough develops a complexity and elasticity that fast-fermented doughs can't reach. The structure that comes out is thin and crisp on the bottom, with a rising crust that's full but light and airy inside rather than fat or doughy. Up to 250 pies leave the oven on Fridays and Saturdays, and the shop has sold out on a few nights already.
Hot honey is the kitchen's through-line: the Bee-Sting layers nduja, chilies, fennel pollen, and basil under a honey finish; Hot Honey Soppressata runs cured meat under fior di latte and grana padano; Spicy Vodka Roni puts pepperoni and jalapeño on vodka and tomato sauce with hot honey at the close. Head chef Brian McCourt — Dublin-born, Waterloo Region-trained through Wildcraft, Bauer Kitchen, The Rich Uncle, and Graffiti Market — built the menu around the sweet-against-spicy framing that anchors the shop's identity.
Willibald Pizza is the second location of the Willibald brand, which started as a craft distillery in Ayr in 2017. Co-owners Cam Formica, Jordan van der Heyden, and Nolan Jordan van der Heyden had built a distillery, brewery, and restaurant on a single Ayr property and were turning guests away because pizza demand at the Farm was bursting at the seams. McCourt joked about opening a pizza shop; two weeks later the team came back to ask if he was serious. He was.
Willibald earns this card through its pizza identity: five-day cold-fermented dough, NY-style pies, hot honey, strong specialty builds, and a slice counter that still feels tied to serious crust work.
The beer side matters because Willibald's brewery and distillery roots are part of the shop's DNA. House-brand drafts give the Cambridge pizzeria a drink program that feels connected rather than bolted on.
Willibald has neighbourhood-anchor energy because it is casual, repeatable, and built around food different generations can share. Slices, pies, beer, and a downtown Galt address make it easy to fold into local routine.
Bee-Sting gives the shop its clearest signature. Nduja, chilies, fennel pollen, mozzarella, basil, tomato sauce, and honey make the hot-honey identity obvious in one pizza.
The counter-culture fit comes from the hybrid model: walk-in slices by day, full pies by night, no reservations, and a room that keeps the experience casual without treating the pizza casually.
Share the nuances of your visit to Willibald Pizza in Cambridge — the standout dishes, the room, the service.
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