Our Story

General Assembly Pizza started as a restaurant with a simple mission: Bring people together over pizza.

We opened our doors in 2017 and our made-to-order pies—with artisanal ingredients working in perfect harmony atop 100% naturally leavened dough—landed us on all the right lists and earned us a following. Turns out, we were just getting started.

The real story is how a community of pizza lovers came together to break through the restaurant mould. Today, we’re more than a restaurant, we’re changing the game and we’re building a pizza-powered community like no other.

Ali Khan LalaniFounder

Ali is a permanent student of (the good) life and has always learned through experience.  His passion for hands-on learning has taken him everywhere. He’s spent time in California, where he was certified as a Pizzaiolo, and been tested at the Court of Master Sommeliers (where he received his Level 2 Sommelier accreditation). He’s travelled through Naples and Rome where he has conducted extensive (and delicious) product research. And he’s always scoping out the best playgrounds in Toronto with his daughter, Mila.

Driven by a desire to keep GA at the forefront of the food experience and hospitality industries, Ali is committed to serving GA’s ever-growing community of pizza lovers with the passion and perfectionism with which he serves his family.

Curt MartinExecutive Chef

Our Executive Chef Curt Martin doesn’t just build pizzas, he builds kitchens. He’s spent years exploring new frontiers in food and he’s always looking for ways to drive our food quality (and our thinking) forward.

Chef has a wealth of culinary and food-tech expertise and has served many roles including ‘back-of-house hero’ and ‘startup savant’. He also brings a get-it-done scrappiness that frankly, we couldn’t live without.

If you ask Chef about pizza he’ll give you a wry smile. “It may be corny,” he says, “but I thought GA was the best pizza in Toronto before I came on board. Now I get to make sure it is.”