Shorty's Pizza

The ring of sesame seeds around the crust is the giveaway. It edges the Pepperoni, the NY Cheese and several of the other core pies at Shorty's Pizza, and it marks a kitchen that has settled on exactly what it wants to be. This is a New York-style pizzeria on Cannon Street East in east Hamilton, where a plain slice off the counter and a fully built pie are treated as two ends of the same idea. The list is short on purpose — classics cooked cleanly, plus a handful of pies that reach further — and it is sold by the slice for a fast lunch or in fourteen- and eighteen-inch rounds for a table.

Pepperoni is the clearest read on the style: sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, nothing crowding the plate. It sits beside a NY Cheese that pares the idea down further to a sauce and mozzarella blend, and a Margherita finished with Grana Padano and basil. These are the baseline orders, the ones that show the crust and the proportions without distraction. The meat-free choices hold their own weight rather than reading as afterthoughts — the Veggie Deluxe with roasted mushroom and red pepper, and the White, which swaps tomato for olive oil and layers mozzarella with garlic ricotta, arugula, lemon zest and pesto.

The pies that reach further are where the kitchen shows its hand. Spicy Sausage builds heat in stages, folding house sausage and Calabrian chili into Grana Padano before a finish of hot honey and basil, while the Spicy Deluxe stacks pepperoni, double-smoked bacon and house sausage with red onion and jalapeño. Bacon and Mushroom carries that same hot honey under roasted mushroom and kale, and the Hawaiian gives the pineapple-and-bacon standard a jolt of hot peppers. The Elote is the outlier — a pizza that borrows from Mexican street corn, with cotija, roasted corn, jalapeño, lime crema, Tajín and cilantro. Around the pizzas sit the Nodini, knots of the same dough turned in garlic oil, Padano and chili, with a Garlic Dill Dip on the side and a Banana Pudding to close the meal.

What the range says is that restraint and invention are not in conflict here. A pizzeria that will run a plain cheese slice all day is also willing to put lime crema and Tajín on a pie and mean it, and the two coexist without either feeling like a gimmick. The dining room backs up that reading. It leans retro rather than polished, with an open kitchen that keeps the assembly and the oven in view, and it is fully licensed, so a craft beer next to a couple of pies is part of the plan rather than a bolt-on.

Shorty's has worked this stretch of Cannon Street East since 2018, and the way it runs has stayed unfussy. The dine-in counter is the anchor, but the same kitchen sends pies out by phone pickup and delivery and takes catering orders, and it books tables online for anyone who wants a set arrival time; reservations are not required, though the restaurant suggests one for busier evenings. A slice at the counter makes a solo stop simple, while a pair of fourteen-inch pies turns the same kitchen into a group plan without any change in register.

The constant is the sesame-cut crust and the short list of pies; what changes is how a diner gets to them — a quick slice at lunch, a couple of shared pies over a licensed evening, a delivery on a weeknight when cooking is off the table. Start with the Pepperoni to learn the proportions, add the White or the Elote when the table wants contrast, and the menu will have said most of what it means before the first pie is gone.