Tuscanos Pizzeria & Bistro

Tuscano's Pizzeria & Bistro runs two registers at one address: a pizza and panzerotti counter on one side, a wine bar pouring sixteen by-the-glass selections on the other, and a handmade-pasta line that decides which lane the dinner ends in. The Oxford Street East dining room sits across the road from Fanshawe College in London's east end, in the Argyle and Dundas East stretch where student neighbourhood and weeknight family territory share the same blocks. The breadth is the point. A weeknight table can split a Tuscano Bread, drop into the panzerotti section for a Classic, and chase it with a glass of red without the room shifting register. A Friday night can lean into the bistro side with Wild Mushroom Chicken Marsala and a thin-crust pie to share.

The strongest plates pull the kitchen in two directions at once. Goat Cheese and Grape Thin Crust Pizza is the sweet-savoury signature — mozzarella and goat cheese under red grapes, caramelized onions, crispy prosciutto, and a vincotto drizzle that carries the dish past topping-list territory. Sweet and Spicy Sausage Pizza works the same axis through dates, gorgonzola, chili flakes, and honey. On the pasta side, Wild Mushroom Chicken Marsala lands as the bistro signature: pan-seared chicken, wild mushrooms, fettuccine, marsala cream, romano, and pea shoots, a plate that reads as composed rather than assembled. The panzerotti section gets treated as a full main-course lane — Classic with pepperoni, mushrooms, bacon, and green peppers; Hog Wild for a meat-forward order; Vegetarian for the rest. Tuscano Bread — focaccia with mozzarella, caramelized onion, bacon, and a marinara dip — anchors the starter slot for a table that hasn't decided yet.

The handmade core is what gives the menu its centre of gravity. Pastas, breads, sauces, and desserts come out of the kitchen rather than off a supplier truck, and the bar program runs alongside that work as a parallel discipline — sixteen wines by the glass, beer, cocktails, and non-alcoholic options sequenced with the food. Whole mozzarella and fresh-packed tomatoes anchor the pizza work, and the thin-crust section delivers on that promise. Sweet-savoury combinations sit next to red-sauce comfort on the same page, and the menu trusts the reader to find their own way through it. A salad lineup that runs from Caesar to a Goat Cheese and Grape build to a beet salad gives the lighter end of the meal the same attention as the pizza section. Steak Frites, Honey Mustard Salmon, and Salmon Gnocchi extend the bistro side past pasta. The gluten-free pizza option sits in the middle of the menu, not in a footnote. Nothing here is calibrated for a single audience: the gourmet thin-crust pizzas can run a wine-pairing dinner, the panzerottis can run a Friday-night takeout order, and the dining room holds both without either feeling like an afterthought.

The restaurant has been family-run since it opened, and that posture shows up in the operating choices rather than in the marketing copy. Old-world methods, fresh ingredients, and small-batch production are the working premise; local food writing has covered the kitchen for its handmade gnocchi, in-house focaccia, and from-scratch dessert work. The wine bar grew up beside the pizzeria rather than replacing it, which is why the menu still treats panzerotti and thin-crust pizza as equal citizens to handmade pasta and steak frites. The breadth is not a compromise. It is what a family-run Italian bistro across from a college looks like when the kitchen decides to do both sides of the work and keep them on the same page.

The week settles into a shape that fits the food. Lunch and dinner run Tuesday through Friday from late morning to nine; Saturday opens at four for the dinner shift; Sunday and Monday are closed. That schedule reads less as a constraint than as a choice — a kitchen that bakes its own bread, makes its own pasta, and pours sixteen wines by the glass isn't trying to be a seven-day operation. The Oxford Street East address has been holding that rhythm since 2013, across the road from Fanshawe College, and the menu has stayed broad enough to absorb whatever the table wants the visit to be: a quick panzerotti, a thin-crust experiment, a marsala-cream dinner with a glass of red. The Family Meal Deal sits in its own corner for advance orders, the gluten-free pizza is built into the regular section, and the Saturday opening keeps the dinner shift uncluttered by lunch.