Napoletana’s pizzas still the real deal
There’s something about the combination of flour, water, salt, tomato sauce and cheese that keeps us coming back for more. And for six years, pizza lovers have been passionate about the pies coming out of the woodfired oven at Mountain View’s Napoletana Pizzeria.
Tucked into a strip mall between a Cost Plus and a kebab-pupuseria eatery, the cozy dining room exudes warmth with its flickering candles and soft jazz soundtrack. A colorful mural depicting a San Francisco city scene covers one wall.
Napoletana is home to a mere 41 seats; the best three are at the small bar. From there, we watched owner and pizzaiolo Costas Eleftheriadis softly slap dough into pies. As the pizzas baked, they gave off delightful yeasty, toasty and bready aromas. Eleftheriadis was certainly dressed for the part, clad in a tightfitting black head scarf, with a bright red bandanna tied around the neck of his crisp white chef’s jacket.
He opened Napoletana in 2011 and earned the coveted authentic Neapolitan woodfired oven pizza certification by Italy’s prestigious Associanzione Verace Pizza Napoletana in 2012, the first South Bay restaurant to receive this stamp of approval. That means pizzas are made with 00 flour (double zero or “doppio zero” in Italian) and baked in a 900-degree wood-burning oven in 60 to 90 seconds.
A home bread baker and amateur home pizza maker, Eleftheriadis fell in love with Neapolitan pizza while visiting Naples, Italy, and enrolled in the Vera Pizza Napoletana association’s school. He bought the Mountain View restaurant space because it already had a wood-fired pizza oven. The sole pizza maker, Eleftheriadis uses a mix of mostly almond wood to create the blaze.
We kicked off our meal with the perfectly bitter, salty and peppery Insalata Tricolore con Parmigiano salad, with arugula, endive and radicchio ($11). Napoletana’s version of classic carbonara ($16) featured glistening, silky egg and Parmesan cheese-coated noodles. Studded with crisp pancetta, this was the ultimate comfort food.
But the best was yet to come. All 13 pizza topping combinations are ones Eleftheriadis found in Naples. There are no fancy pesto chicken or ham and pineapple pies here. The Margherita ($15) was textbook, with that bubbly, charred and chewy crust, tangy tomato sauce and creamy, melty cheese, punctuated by the basil’s licorice bite. It’s a pizza you need to eat fresh out of the oven.
Eleftheriadis riffs on the classic Margherita, stuffing the Del Carcerato ($18) outer crust with creamy ricotta before baking it. That surprise bite of milky cheese provided a cool contrast to the warm slice.
The namesake Napoletana ($18) featured tons of housemade pork Italian sausage topping tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. This sausage also makes an appearance on Del Cafone ($19), a savory sauceless pie with broccoli rabe, smoked mozzarella and olive oil.
Save room for dessert. Eleftheriadis imports the gelato and pastries from Italy, which arrive frozen from a Milan bakery, because he can’t find better locally made sweets. The layered Coppa Mascarpone ($7) with rich chocolate cream topped by sweet, light and airy mascarpone cream, was dusted with crunchy amaretto cookie crumbs and bitter chocolate shavings.
Service throughout our meal was easygoing, attentive without being obtrusive, and pizzas arrived piping hot. We’ll certainly be back to try more of Napoletana’s menu. Save us those seats near the oven.