For 25 years, this Annex room was home to Splendido, one of Toronto’s top dining rooms, where nights began with Champagne carts and caviar, and ended with scotches old enough to legally drink scotch. In 2016, owner Victory Barry decided it was time for a refresh. With its bubblegum-pink exterior covered in a mural of multicolored roses, Barry is inviting guests to figuratively smell the roses, or literally smell the rosé, your choice. The restaurant’s name is borrowed from the Italian phrase “piano piano va lontano,” which translates to “slowly slowly we go further.” By this, Barry means, don’t rush through life; stop and enjoy the little moments, like a good pizza dinner shared with friends over a few bottles of vino. The food isn’t masquerading as authentic Italian. Barry likes to joke that it’s New Jersey Italian. Here, the fancy red sauce fare is a far cry from boring baked ziti. The pastas are all house-made, the pizza dough takes days to proof, and the proteins are impressive. The veal parmesan, for instance, comes on the bone. The choice cut is then wrapped in sopressata before it’s dredged in breadcrumbs and fried to perfection. When it comes to the table, slathered in San Marzano tomato sauce, the fior di latte still bubbling, you know you’re now ruined for all other veal parms.