Pizzeria Toro

High end pizza with great ingredient choices. Is crusty, from wood fired oven, so ask them to take out a bit early if you don’t like dark crust. Drinks are great, food great. Can be noisy as room echos a LOT. this place is like NYC spot. Very accommodating service.

If your looking for good authentic wood fire pizza restaurant then this is the place for you.
More for a date night or hang out spot but wouldn’t recommend family dinner with children as it is small and loud.
Overall good spot and will definitely return! Hope this helps.

Sad:/ last time we came to eat at pizzeria toro we were so satisfied and gave them 4 stars. Today– the pizzas we chose were not good:/
We started with the kale salad, which is excellent — would recommend! Has very fresh and satisfyingly crisp kale leaves with cheese slivers and pine nuts and I think roasted peppers.
We got the clam pizza and mozzarella tomato pizza (basically a margherita pizza). As always, the crust is thin and cooked in a legit pizza oven to get nice and toasty. The clam pizza had whole clams on top, on average one per slice, but on the whole was too salty and didn’t have other notes of flavor that it needed. The margherita pizza sauce ended up being too watery, which made the toasty crust soggy. There wasn’t enough cheese or basil on the pizza either.
Disappointed this time but we will be back to try other pizzas.

Went to Pizzeria Toro for dinner. Being from the northeast I have had great wood fired pizza from New Haven, Manhattan and Boston. This place surprised me because they were right up there. Place was packed, good music, great ambience. I tried the white pie with venison sausage, caramelized onions and rustico black pepper. Great flavor throughout, kinda burnt in spots but it was still good. I didn’t think you could find quality pizza like this down here. I was wrong because they are killing it here! Get here early.

One of the best meals I have had in the Triangle. Appetizers (ricotta dumplings and bresaola) were both incredible as well as the four cheese pizza. Will be back.

I love this spot.
I always order the special, and it’s always on point.
The bartenders are friendly and knowledgeable. The service is quick and efficient.
Simple menu.
Don’t skip dessert. Try the Budino, the zeppole, or both!

The place is has two types of pizza.
— tomato sauce pizza
— white sauce pizza
Amazing food. Make sure to request to use less-​salt. The food here — generally salty.
Stick with tomato sauce with meat if you can. (If you like regular pizza)
Try white sauce if you want to try something new.
It does feel high end — need to use the folk & knife — because how they are presented.
After trying few pizzas, me and my co-​workers all agreed stick with anything meat.
The service was amazing.
One of the co-​worker recommanded mushroom special,
Did not liked it and ordered new one.
They did not ended up charging for the special.
The manager came out and checked if the replacement pizza was good.
We were able to tip for their lost, gladly.

Great place to have pizza. The interior design is spot on. This place is always packed and usually has a wait time of 30 – 45 minutes on Friday/​Saturday nights. The Crispy Pig Ears (appetizer) was okay. It was a bit too tangly and chewey. It’s sort of like a friend version of the chinese pig ear dish. My boyfriend and I got the Fennel Sausage pizza and it was pretty good. The pizza was a bit too salty for me.
I would recommend this place for dates and friends but it can be a bit too loud – to the point where you have to shout at each other in order to hear each other.

Another über hipster spot in «South Brooklyn», I mean Durham. My personal prejudices aside, this was a great place: it’s well-​run (owner was hands-​on and very personable), has a friendly staff, solid wine list, and excellent apps and pizza selection.
Only downside is that they do not take reservations, and wait times can sometimes be up to an hour, even on a weeknight. Communal dining as well, but that’s apparently what some trendy spots seem to do nowadays.

I have yet to try an unimpressive dish at Toro. I remember the first bite of food I ever ate there to this day — a sip of deconstructed chilled tomato soup with a scoop of basil sorbet floating like a beautiful emerald isle in the center of the bowl. And I remember the sparkling rose recommended to me by a bartender there once that I then drank every time I dined there until they ran out. And I remember (vividly) the brussel sprout white pizza I had there last night — rich in all the right ways on a thin crust inexplicable crispy and soft and chewy all at once.
In short, Toro is never anything short of memorable. With a warm, inviting atmosphere (the main room tends to be on the bustling and boisterous side at meal times), beautifully decorated, this establishment never disappoints in delivering a menu that equals its impeccable service.
I never miss a chance to hit up Toro when I’m in the neighborhood — too hard to resist!

Was seated right about with party of 8. Found out that table for 8 is first come first serve. That was amazing!
We ordered a total of 5 – 6 pies. All were good.
Excellent service.
Seamless and tasteful dinner!

Great pizza and atmosphere! I can’t say enough about the wood fired oven, makes each and every pizza even more flavor-​able.
I do have to make a note about something they did that was really special– they provided me and my boyfriend at the time (now fiancé!) a glass of champagne on the house because we were out celebrating after months of long distance. In a world where customer service seems to be forgotten, it is nice to see that it is still a valued art form. This is the kind of service that sets Pizzeria Toro on a level above the rest.

I came in for lunch while in downtown Durham. They had a great lunch special– kale salad and cheesy focaccia with roasted garlic for $ 12. It was the perfect size and quite tasty. Definitely one of the better kale salads I have had in recent memory. Come early or late during lunch time because it was mostly empty when I came in about 11:30 and by noon, nearly every table was filled.

One of my favorite restaurants in Durham. The only downside is the long wait on the weekends! Just get a glass of wine or beer and hang out because the wait is totally worth it!
The wine selection is awesome and the waiter will let you taste before you buy. The pizza is out of this world. You don’t feel like you are eating really greasy pizza. It’s light, fluffy, and packed with flavor. We have tried probably about 5 different pizzas so far. Two that stick out to me are the arugula/​soft egg pie as well as the mushroom pie. Their meat pizzas do not disappoint either.
Must have salad: Kale salad with pine nuts and chili oil. Kale has never tasted this good.
This is a downtown Durham gem. Try it !

Pizzeria Toro is an small pizza café on Durham’s East Chapel Hill just off of Main Street, which makes it a great place to hit in conjunction with a DPAC show or a Bull game.
Toro serves modern Neopolitan-​style, which means thin crusts, puffy crusts, and fresh topings. The Neopolitan is closer to what you’d get in Italy rather than the Americanized version you get in New York or nearly every pizza chain.
For those about to sputter «I don’t like thin crust», you haven’t tried Toro. Theirs is thin, but not the limp floppy messes that you have to taco in half just to make it to your mouth. Sure, you’re still going to taco it — but the crust is firm and crispy on the bottom. And the dough has not been over-​kneaded or over-​proofed, so it is lightly chewy and not crazy puffy.
In order to enjoy Toro, you’re going to have to have a bit of an adventurous palate. They have both red and white pizzas, fantastic ingredients thaat you wouldn’t normally get, and combintations that you wouldn’t normally think of. Just go with it. I recommend the Sweet Fennel Sausage/​Roasted Peppers/​Provolone. I see you furrowing your brow. You say you don’t like fennel and peppers make you burp peppers. You’ll like this. Everything is subtle, balanced, and delicious.
I did not try desserts, salads, or appetizers, but everything looked wonderful.
Toro has an open kitchen with the pizza oven and prep are literally jutting into the main dining area. So its ambieance is a bit lively, hot, sweaty, chaotic, and active. You might sit with other patrons at their main great table or perhaps alone at one of the side tables. Not super comfy cozy and closer to artsy and vibe.
Look at the service people. No kids here. These are veteran professionals. These guys are busting their butts with gritted teeth and frowning concentration. You won’t get bubbly hellos or vacuous tee-​hees from them, but you will get prompt service, appropriate suggestions, and things done right. You want eye-​candy servers who screw everything up, go to Hooters. Want pros straining to give you the service you want, come here.
For such a small place, they have a excellent drink list, including some great wines by the glass. It’s a bit on the higher end of the quality end of the spectrum, so you’re going to pay more. But if I’m going to «spend calories» on pizza, I want it to be good. Which means I am coming back. See you soon, Toro!

I stopped into pizzeria toro on a Saturday night. There was a 20 to 30 minute wait for the dining room. The bar was packed. There was even a standing section behind the bar that was full, and it looked like there were place settings in the standing bar area too. People were actually going to stand and eat pizza. I left.
But I came back. I told my mom how crowded it was, and she said, «Well, of course you have to go back. If it’s that busy, they’re clearly doing something right.» I returned on a Thursday at 6. It wasn’t empty, there were a fair amount of people in the main dining room and a handful in the bar. I got a glass of wine that was dry and delicious and the special of the night: a white pizza with bufala mozzarella, shaved prosciutto, fresh garlic, and lobster mushrooms. Guess what, they are doing something right. They’re doing a lot of things right. It was simply delicious. Service was a also pretty quick. After ordering my pie, I barely had enough time to fool around on Twitter (yes, I was out on my own. It won’t kill you to eat out by yourself every now and then. Treat yourself. Enjoy your own company.)
I’ll be back to try some of the other pies on the menu.

One of my favorite places to go in Durham! The wait times can typically be long because they don’t take reservations, so may not be the place to take a really large group (we had 6 people and had to wait about 20 minutes on a Wednesday night to get in), but once you sit down you’re going to love it. The service was fast and the food is excellent! Here are my recommendations:
1) Get the kale salad, it’s sooooo good!
2) Our group shared a bunch of pizzas and the fennel sausage one was the group’s favorite.
3) Don’t skip dessert. The fried to order zeppole (basically very large fried donut balls) are OUT OF THIS WORLD good.
4) The ambiance can be loud, so probably not good for a first date.
Will definitely be back!

I have always wanted to try Pizzeria Toro and I finally got the chance. Went with my boyfriend on a Saturday night around 6:00. The place was already full! I did not understand that this is one of those places where you share tables with other random people. This is my only reason for knocking it down to four stars. I am NOT a fan of that.
In this case, we were told there was a spot open at a table with a family of four. We would be taking the last two seats at that table. I really don’t want to have a date that involves sitting next to other people’s small children — like right next to them. I can’t imagine they want to sit next to us either.
We ended up finding a seat at the bar which was all well and good until it eventually began to get so crowded that it became a bit of an uncomfortable place to sit and eat.
The food was amazing. I had the fried eggplant pizza and it really is as good as everyone says it is. The cheese was heavenly and melted in my mouth. Service at the bar was great. We had the fried donuts with the dipping sauces for dessert. Highly recommend it — perfect for sharing but a lot for just one person. It’s a super fun dessert as you get to dunk you pieces of fried dough into either chocolate or vanilla sauce.
My only hesitation about coming back again is the seating. It’s loud. It’s crowded, and I don’t think it makes for a great atmosphere. I wasn’t looking for anything romantic. But we did spend about 70.00 for dinner (two pizzas, one glass of wine, two beers, and one dessert plus tip). For that amount, I think I should be able to sit next to/​across from my boyfriend without feeling crammed or being told I have to sit at a table with small children.

Yes, that’s right — I thought Pizzeria Toro was SO good, I decided to return! Sure, you can absolutely get a cheaper, bigger pizza elsewhere, but these pizzas are not your every-​day-​type-​of-​pizza. They are nice to try when you are interested in exploring something new and/​or creative, not to be consumed on a regular basis.
Sweet Fennel Sausage, Roasted Peppers, and Provolone (red pizza, $ 17) is a very popular choice here. Not only does it look impressive, but it tastes impressive as well! The sausage isn’t spicy at all, and the sauce isn’t too messy. Loved it!
Venison Sausage, Caramelized Onions, Rustico Black Pepper — The venison of this white pizza ($ 17) has a strong, overpowering scent to it, but the meat is very tender and resembles mini meatballs. It isn’t as tasty as the previous red pizza, but it’s not terrible either.
Really Boozy Tiramisu, House Ladyfingers, Goshing’s — This dessert ($ 9) comes in a little cup. You can definitely taste the booze, but it’s not enough to get you drunk, or even buzzed. If this was your intention upon ordering this dessert, sorry to disappoint, folks! It tastes like your typical tiramisu, but less sweet and a little more «boozy.»
Fried to Order Zeppole, Vanilla Custard, Chocolate — I was prompted to try this because I saw this constantly coming out of the kitchen fo multiple customers. These deep-​fried zeppole (4 pieces for $ 9) look and taste a lot like beignets! They come with 2 dipping options, but the zeppole also taste good without any dipping.

What the heck took me so long to get here? Okay, so a little distance from North Raleigh to downtown Durham is a small part of it, but let me just say it won’t keep me away again!
We actually had the nerve to enter at prime time on a Saturday night and still managed to get seated right away at a table for two near the kitchen… where we proceeded to have a perfect experience! Having just had a salad at a nearby place, we decided to share a couple pizzas. (although neighbor folks had some killer-​looking salads that we WILL go back and experience).
We opted for the anchovies, garlic, chiles, basil. Also the fennel sausage, roasted peppers, provolone. Italian pizza perfection… both of them! We couldn’t decide which we liked better… perfect crust, sublime quality toppings, all balanced with deft perfection. Not only perfect served hot, but also the one-​piece-​of-​each leftover were the perfect cold breakfast-​in-​bed ever!
Saving those last two pieces of pizza enabled us to try the killer zeppoles for dessert. Now we were warned that they would take 15 – 20 minutes, and let me just say they were sooooo worth the wait! Light, airy doughy greatness! Especially loved the white cream dipping sauce with a touch of fresh citrus.
There is no doubt that this place has PERFECTED the Italian pizza experience.