Elena fed rock stars pizza for four years—now Griffintown gets a slice of that pie

For the past four years, the team behind Elena have been running a side hustle only rockstars would have access to: cranking out a thousand slices a day at Osheaga, ÎleSoniq, and Lasso.

"The artists love Osheaga because of the food," Ryan Gray explained. "It's unlike any other festival. The best chefs in the city putting together this incredible catering—it became something we looked forward to all year because we loved making it. We thought we had a really good product on our hands, something special."

They did: They weren't cooking up the wood-fired Neapolitan pies they're known for in Saint-Henri, but proper 18-inch New York-style pizzas baked in deck ovens, designed for volume, reheating, and feeding very discerning crowds—pies that are on offer at Elena Pizzeria in Griffintown.

For the first time in their careers, Gray and executive chef Chris Cameron—now a partner in the new venture—had a product perfected before they even had a lease. "We had this pizza ready and no idea where we were going to make it," Gray says. "That became the trickiest part."

"The slice shop of my dreams."

Cue a hunt across Montreal for the right space. Different neighbourhoods, different sizes, different ideas. Nothing clicked. "There's a lot more pressure when you already have an established name," Gray admits. "We really wanted to make sure we were going to open something that checked off all the boxes."

Then, last September, Gray's driving through Griffintown. The construction chaos he remembered had settled. The neighbourhood had emerged, and there it was: a hundred-year-old corner building at Ottawa and Murray that he'd been eyeing since before Nora Gray even opened—coincidentally, the same spot he'd wanted back in the day.

"I was like, okay, this is it. The slice shop of my dreams."

It's hard to overstate how different this is from Gray's usual MO. His career has been built on destination restaurants in unlikely places—Elena's end-of-Saint-Henri location and Gia tucked behind a Home Depot, Nora Gray started on a drive-by street before Little Burgundy became what it is now. "I've spent my career finding spaces no one in their right mind would ever open something in," he laughs. "And now we're going back to Griffintown where it all began, but this time we want foot traffic. We want walk-ins. We want a lot of people."

Gray worked with Zébulon Perron of Atelier Moderno on the buildout—a funny collaboration, given the scale. "He was like, 'What do you even want me to do here?'" Gray laughs. "But with a space that small, you want to make sure you're maximizing and not compromising."

Griffintown delivers

The spot is a block off Peel, a block north of the ÉTS campus, a block south of the Lachine Canal. Vertical living, engineers, office workers, volleyball courts, cyclists. "It's really a cool spot. We were pinching ourselves that it was available—and that it's also beautiful. A really nice old corner in an old building with lots of windows and lots of light."

At 500 square feet, it's the smallest thing Gray's ever opened, and the first that isn't a sit-down restaurant. "We've never opened anything that wasn't like a full-service spot. This is going to be more of a good-food-quickly kind of thing."

Here, that festival pizza recipe that's been quietly perfected over four summers—a two-day sourdough made with local organic flour, freshly milled by La Milanaise—gets topped with quality. The "Dany" from Elena makes an appearance (mozzarella di bufala, spinach, sesame, spicy honey), alongside a classic New York pepperoni, a mushroom pie, and a Rossa. There's a kale Caesar. A not-quite-a-hoagie Italian sandwich with three meats, red wine vinegar, olive oil, and oregano. And soft-serve gelato.

Gray's wine program comes too, scaled down but no less thoughtful. Natural wines from small producers, a bit more Quebec on the list this time—"I think the wines have never been better, and as far as price point for a pizzeria, it's probably the best value proposition on the market right now," Ryan adds.

Beer, sparkling drinks, counter service. A couple of booths if you want to linger. A long counter if you'd rather stand and eat your slice right then and there.

The result is a corner pizzeria that feels like it's always been there, in a neighbourhood that's finally ready for it. Griffintown's last century-old building, holding its ground in a sea of glass towers. "It'd be gorgeous anywhere in the city," Gray says. "But the fact that it's there—it's like a little beacon."

Pizzeria Elena officially opened Wednesday, October 8th following a friends-and-family night and free pizza day to stress-test the operation. Hours are noon to 8 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday, to start.