You might know her for coffee, but Tracey Clark would argue that she’s actually had a longer history with pizza.
Many Ottawa residents might recognize Clark as one of the founders and former CEO of Bridgehead Coffee, a well-known local business that was sold to a Toronto firm in 2019 for $9.5 million.
But it was almost two years ago, when Clark was wandering around her Lindenlea neighbourhood, when the inspiration struck for another, even more personal, venture.
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“I had hip surgery and I was convalescing by walking around my neighbourhood. This was back in late 2023 and the little house at the corner of Beechwood (Avenue) and Chapeleau (Avenue) was vacant. I thought, ‘Oh, that would be great for something. It’s one of those little hole-in-the-wall places that become a beloved restaurant,’” she said.
And so last week, Clark opened Linden Pizza at 119 Beechwood Ave. in Vanier.
Clark told OBJ on Tuesday that Linden is a “deeply personal project,” with almost every detail of the restaurant being a reflection of her own life and the people in it.
“I’m someone that likes to really get absorbed in projects and I love community,” she said, adding that she worked in a few Italian restaurants in her early 20s, progressing from kitchen manager to menu manager and getting well-acquainted with artisanal pizzas along the way.
Though Clark has lived in the Lindenlea neighbourhood, where the restaurant gets its name, in Vanier since 1997, she has been active in its community since she was a teenager, when she would cycle from Cumberland Township to play and work on the red clay courts of the New Edinburgh Tennis Club.
“I would stop for a cup of tea along Beechwood at a little place called the Linden Restaurant, which (is no longer there) … The colour scheme that we’ve chosen for the restaurant, there are tones of rust or persimmon. They evoke pizza. They kind of also evoke like, Lisbon, or, you know … some place in northern Italy. But for me, it also is kind of resonant with those red clay courts,” she said.
Clark knew she wanted to make something to honour the community she loves from the first time she saw the site of what is now Linden Pizza, adding that she wants the restaurant to have a “cozy, warm and relaxed” atmosphere where customers will feel the care and attention she is putting into each dish.
Quoting The New Yorker food writer Helen Rosner, Clark said pizza is “almost a Jungian experience where, ‘You tell me what kind of pizza you like and I’ll tell you who you are.’”
Linden’s menu has eight pizzas on offer, with four red sauce pizzas and four white-and-green pizzas, but the Linden Pizza experience begins with the crust.
“We’re really proud of our crust. It’s made with flour that comes from a mill in Quebec. It’s a European (style) flour called T65 and we do an Italian pre-ferment with it called biga. (To make the dough) is actually a three-day process where the dough will be triple-fermented,” Clark said.
After the fermentation process, the dough becomes a “really nutty tasting” crust that Clark said she hopes is so good that it could do without a topping.
“The bar was so high. The dough has to be so good that people go, ‘I don’t need a topping. I just really like the crust,’” she said.
The tomato sauce has also been thought through, Clark added, with Italian San Marzano tomatoes being crushed by hand “so that we don’t put air into the tomatoes, which would compromise the flavour.”
Clark said that she and Linden chef Mackenzie Coombes crafted the menu as an homage to those around them.
“The ‘Valentina,’ which is our version of a pepperoni, (has) la cultura (pepperoni), which is a Prince Edward County producer of a beautiful artisanal charcuterie. We’re using (that) along with hot honey, fior di latte, mozzarella and basil. That’s Mackenzie’s creation and he’s named it after his girlfriend,” she said.
Clark used the recipe she makes with her son during their Friday pizza nights for inspiration for the “Linden” pizza. The restaurant also serves a pizza called “The Irish,” named for Clark’s mother, who was always enamoured with the flavours of Italian cooking.
“The Irish is this lemon ricotta cream base with these very thinly sliced Yukon Gold potatoes and little bit of thyme and we actually offer what I call a ‘poor man’s caviar,’ which is just some lumpfish roe. It adds a little bit of salinity and bite to the pizza,” Clark said.
Even though the menu is entrenched in personal connections, Clark said she hopes it will appeal to everyone, with vegan and gluten-free options and zero-proof options available for drinks.
While the menu puts the Linden spin on traditional Italian classics, from the Caesar salad to the tiramisu, Clark said what she’s most proud to serve up is hospitality.
“The thing that inspires us from a mission point of view is a quote by French philosopher Simone Weil who said, ‘Attention is the purest and rarest form of generosity.’ We change that to be, ‘Attention is the purest and rarest form of hospitality,’ which touches the social part of what we’re doing,” she said.
Community is at the heart of all of her projects, Clark said, and this new project is aimed at doing her part of fixing the “loneliness epidemic.”
“This notion of creating a place where people can come together and be at ease and just enjoy pizza is really appealing. We’re all glued to our phones, which is problematic. Isn’t it lovely to have a conversation with someone? When we’re providing hospitality, we are being very attentive and, I guess, underlying all of this is that desire to offer hospitality and create a beloved community place,” she said.
Though only in her second week of business, Clark said the team is already getting rave reviews.
“It’s a place that I wanted to create in my neighbourhood that I would love to go to. This is a creative project and a very celebratory project. Plus, who doesn’t love pizza?”
