Welcome to episode one of “A Little Slice of Italy,” my new show that spotlights some of the local businesses San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood has to offer. Today we’re interviewing Chris Antinucci, the owner of Napizza.
Napizza is a family owned business located at 1702 India Street. Chris was born and raised in Rome, then opened the restaurant in June 2012 with the idea in mind to bring back a corner of his home city to San Diego. Besides that, he loves pizza, so part of his motivation was to be able to eat great pizza every day.
What makes Napizza special, according to Chris, is that they don’t deviate from the quality of their ingredients. They import both their flour and yeast straight from Italy, and they levitate their dough for 72 hours. As he likes to say, “Their crust is their heart and their toppings is their imagination.” In my personal opinion, their crust is actually better than what you would find in Rome.
As Chris knows, Italians don’t eat at places they don’t believe in, and the real testament to his restaurant’s quality is the fact that it’s always jam-packed with Italian customers. Just because they have refined customers, however, doesn’t mean they don’t get their share of crazy requests. The very first day they opened, in fact, Chris had a customer ask for a tub of mayonnaise that they could spread all over their margherita pie. Needless to say, he almost fainted.
“This place is the real deal.”
Chris and his staff are keen on combining American tastes with traditional Italian cuisines. In Italy, the potato pizza is a very popular style of pie. When Chris introduced it in his restaurant, however, nobody tried it. He was on the verge of discontinuing it until one of his chefs simply suggested adding bacon as one of its toppings. Sure enough, the pie exploded in popularity and remains one of their top sellers.
As an Italian, I’m really picky with my food, but trust me when I tell you that this place is the real deal. If you’d like to sample a true taste of Italy, I can’t recommend this place enough. For a limited time only, if you go there and mention Whissel Realty, you will receive a 10% discount on your order.
If you have any questions about this episode of “A Little Slice of Italy,” please feel free to call me anytime. I hope to hear from you soon. Ciao!
