THANKS FOR A GREAT YEAR

The year is coming to an end. We have so much to be thankful for. We continue to enjoy our work and all of you who come in to dine.Thanks to Roberto Caporuscio of Keste in New York, my pizzaiuoli friends in Naples, and Arthur Schwartz of Brooklyn for your inspirations and celebrations of southern Italian cuisines that you share so openly. We are grateful for this food community. We continue to evolve. Four years into our business, the interesting and healthy debate concerning Neapolitan pizza continues. What makes a pizza great? What is authentic? What is tradition? Though I always have something to say about this topic, I would never venture forth and give an absolute about myself or the pizza we make. All I can tell you is that we try our best, that we try to honor the tradition and the joy of cooking that brings us all together. We are doing longer, more gentle rises with our dough. Our hands are more delicate. We are never at a loss for new treats to serve when a cookbook is opened.

I am thankful for all of our friends in Italy, I miss them terribly. It is now over twenty years since my family and I first moved to Florence and our lives changes forever. Italy, Chicago, it is all of a piece now. Do I make the best pizza? I'm not sure that's what it is all about. Of course we want to put something good, even great , on the table, and we always want it to be better. More important I think for all of us here at Spacca Napoli is to be proud of what we do, to enjoy ourselves and all of you. What makes a restaurant great? Maybe a better question is what makes us thrive - and in closing this year I would say it is sitting at the table with friends, with those you love - what could be better?

Happy New Year!

WELCOME SPRINGTIME!

Spring at Spacca Napoli brings with it new lighter fare such as a minestra di zucchini and Maccu di San Giuseppe. Arthur Schwartz, The Food Maven, describes the latter soup as combining “two foods that are preserved for winter — dried beans and dried chestnuts — with the greens that are just emerging from the cold winter earth.” We have introduced a pizza made with a varietal of mozzarella called burrata, a creamy, light and spectacularly flavorful cheese renowned for its freshness and soft texture. Red pepper, onion and zucchini trifoliate along with porcini and a touch of bufala mozzarella make this a white pizza dream! We look forward to the re-opening of the outdoor café as the weather permits. This coming June, Spacca Napoli will extend its hours to include Tuesday evenings so we can celebrate more of the good summer weather and longer hours of daylight we have all been waiting for.

We are very excited about our upcoming involvement with the Provincial Councils of Avellino, Caserta and Napoli. We have been asked to team up with them to promote the food of Campania and the Mediterranean Diet as “something unique and upscale that can be interpreted in modern ways as well as traditional.” The week prior to the Global Food and Style Expo in Chicago which is April 27-29, 2008, Spacca Napoli will be offering a tasting of Pasta e Fagioli con Le Cozze, Fusilli alla Napoletana and Paccheri al Ragu.

In closing we bid a fond farewell to Adrian Landin, one of our wait staff who has been with the pizzeria since the early days, as he ventures on to Central and South America. We wish him good luck in his journeys and will miss his energy!