It was Pasquale “Patsy” D’Amore who opened the first pizzeria in Los Angeles, in 1949 at the Original Farmers Market, and it’s still there today (daughter Filomena runs it). Born in Naples (Napoli), in 1939 he had moved to LA from Brooklyn, New York, where he owned Pizzeria Napoletana, and opened the Italian restaurant Casa D’Amore with his brother Franklyn. In 1950 he added Villa Capri in Hollywood, which became a favorite of stars like Frank Sinatra, Lauren Bacall and many others.
75 years later, I had the idea of exploring where you can find authentic (verace) Neapolitan pizza in Los Angeles today.
My first stop was Nardò in Culver City, a new restaurant opened in 2024, where I had enjoyed a salame piccante (spicy) pizza earlier this year. I was very lucky that, when I walked in one afternoon, pizza chef Antonio Greco welcomed me and shared his personal experience.
As an immigrant myself, the first question I asked is why he moved to LA. He replied that an Italian entrepreneur, who now owns eight restaurants in the US, came looking for him in Naples many times, because of his excellent reputation as a master pizzaiolo, to convince him to come work in his San Francisco restaurant Doppio Zero, and three years ago he accepted. They later opened Nardò in Huntington Beach, named after the owner’s mother, who is from Taranto in the Puglia region.
This second location in Culver City was ideal because it already had a beautiful wood-fired pizza oven, from a previous restaurant called Wildcraft, that I mentioned in one of my posts when it opened in 2013. Coincidentally, Antonio knows the manufacturer, Stefano Ferrari, whose factory is in Pozzuoli. This special type of oven, that reaches the high temperature of 800 plus degrees Fahrenheit, is essential to make this kind of pizza, that has to cook very quickly. The type of wood used is beech (faggio).
Antonio takes great care in crafting the dough, for a lighter and more digestible pizza. When I wonder if he throws the pie up in the air, he says that he could give it a couple of twirls, but then it would break because it’s soft not hard, therefore less easy to manipulate, unlike the kind they use in Freestyle Acrobatic Dough Tossing competitions.
Vincenzo, the chef at Nardò, is extremely proud of their pizza, and “simpatico” just like Antonio.
After sampling a marvelously airy pizza Margherita (white, red and green are the colors of the Italian flag), I went back two weeks later to try Antonio’s calzone, a folded pizza stuffed with salami, mozzarella and ricotta. I loved it so much that I took the other half home to eat for dinner. Reheating leftover pizza is something I would never do, but this crust was so soft and chewy that it did not harden.
It was only last month that I finally tried the pizza at a restaurant that opened in 2018, No. 10 on Third Street, named after the number on the jersey of the owner, famous footballer Alessandro Del Piero of the Juventus soccer team. I ordered my dinner guest’s choice, Capricciosa, and was delighted when it arrived at the table piled up with thinly sliced prosciutto cotto, which is much tastier than deli ham. Then I went back with my new friend Giorgia to try their pizza with prosciutto crudo, my favorite. The setting is very elegant, with a shaded outdoor patio, a perfect place for socializing, Italian-style.
For the past few years, since my family purchased a home in the historic West Adams neighborhood, our go-to pizza place is Spaccio Salumeria by the Truffle Brothers (Michael and Marco are from Campobasso, in the Molise region), where they make delicious pizza (only on weekdays for lunch), that you may eat seated at their outdoor patio or take home. I went there last week, ordered two pizzas to go, and saw their pizzaiolo make them. He cut them in triangles, as they do in Naples, then added the raw prosciutto, mozzarella and baby tomatoes on top after cooking the pies for 5 minutes in the hot oven.
Unlike when I was younger, I am no longer able to eat a whole pizza by myself, so if I cannot convince a friend or relative to join me, I go to Eataly, that opened in 2017 in Century City, where I can savor just one square piece, cut out from a large rectangular shaped pizza, also with the bubbly outer crust that I prefer. They call it Roman-style Pizza alla Pala, after the large paddle used to slide the pizza dough directly onto the stone oven floor.
Antonio told me of another restaurant where they serve authentic Neapolitan pizza, the chef being from Naples. It has the romantic name of Settecento and it’s downtown. I plan to invite someone to go check it out with me one of these summer weekends.
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If you are lover of authentic Italian food, you may read Gelato in LA.