There are some dishes that do better as takeout than others and sadly the items from Café Landwer are best eaten at the restaurant. Landwer recognizes this fact, as their menu has morphed to include more travel-friendly offerings like sandwiches, pastas, and pizza. Luckily, it’s always been an eclectic mix of ethnicities and choices, so these new additions don’t seem out of place.

The sinia kebab ($19) was almost like a hearty pizza anyways, a base of their soft chewy pita that’s slathered with tahini and then topped with a full charbroiled eggplant, large hunks of roasted tomato and red onion, and chickpeas for added texture. Of course, there’s cubes of the namesake beef kebab topping everything - they a bit tougher, but still has the nice balance of spices and flavours. It’s something the rest of the flatbread ingredients lack, relying merely on the tahini, which isn’t powerful enough to flavour the dish. It’s something a crack of salt and pepper at home helps to improve.

With all the juicy vegetable toppings on the flatbread, it does get soggy in the middle. Do yourself a favour and cut it into quarters and give it 8-10 minutes in a hot oven. This really helps make the flatbread handle better and gives the ingredients a chance to heat up. If you’re hungry, just start with the chopped salad it comes with to tide you over (another thing a crack of salt doesn’t hurt).

In fact, 6-8 minutes in the oven is what all their pizzas need. It does melt the cheese on the burrata pizza ($16.95) so that it pools out over everything, but cold tomato sauce isn’t really my thing. Next time, I’m going to remove the cheese from the pie before reheating and add it back afterwards. It’s a dish we’ll certainly re-order - a simple pizza like a margherita but creamier and more decadent thanks to the burrata.  

Even Café Landwer felt something was amiss with the feta and eggplant pizza ($18.95) as I now see it’s been removed, and the feta’s been swapped with mascarpone cheese instead. It’s true, the big cubes of soft feta cheese were a bit jarring to have in one bite and should have been cut into smaller pieces; a spreadable mascarpone would be much easier to combine with everything.

Let’s hope the replacement also takes the black olives and cuts them down a bit. Indeed, Café Landwer doesn’t skimp on ingredients, but adding so many olives simply overpowered everything, including the delicate roasted eggplant. In my mind a ratio of 40% eggplant, 40% cheese, and 20% olives would work the best.

It might seem strange to order a burger ($18) from the restaurant – my poor husband, who must get a weeknight burger from Café Landwer, just so there’s vegetarian options for my flexitarian diet. Needless to say, I didn’t try it. He notes that while the bun could be refresher, the burger isn’t bad. It not as good as a gourmet burger found elsewhere but does remind him of the ones you used to get in the 80s/90s at neighbourhood joints.

In fact, one bite of the fries accompanying the burger and I get what he means. They’re likely the mass frozen variety, but I’m transported back to Van Horne plaza where I’d tuck into an order of these same flour laced spuds at the fish & chips place. Strangely, these lukewarm not fully crispy fries were what we spoke about the most and finished completely. The taste of nostalgia.

If all else fails, the chicken shawarma hummus ($16) is always a safe bet. It’s perhaps a tad waterier than having it at the restaurant, but the chickpea base is just as smooth and luscious and there’s just as many tender pieces of chicken on top. The tightly wrapped flatbread is perhaps the hottest thing in the order and perfect for ripping apart and tucking into while waiting for the other items to reheat.

Like most people, I can’t wait until we can eat out at restaurants again – spring patios, please arrive soon! Café Landwer’s outdoor dining is where you’ll find me, tucking into dishes like the shaksuka that definitely isn’t made for delivery. Until then, kudos to Café Landwer for hustling and creating new options to weather the COVID takeout needs. While it doesn’t live up to your regular menu, I appreciate the tenacity.