Nittolo’s Napoli

Tastemaker

By Lynda Wheatley | March 6, 2021

You want a medium round with extra mozz, pepperoni, and canned olives? Go somewhere else for your pizza. “This ain’t Build-a-Bear workshop,” says Chef Eric Nittolo. “No choosing toppings.” But if you want a 14-inch hot-from-a-wood-fire flavor revelation, made with the best quality ingredients Nittolo can source from the Motherland (i.e., Bel Paese; i.e., beautiful country; i.e., Italy), and assembled in a way that suggests Nittolo’s chemistry degree might not be second fiddle to his culinary background, go to Nittolo’s.

You’ll find nine pizzas whose precisely orchestrated combo of ingredients — while admittedly intimidating to those of us whose pizza vocabulary hasn’t matured since Hungry Howie’s introduced sesame crusts — needs no translation. Just pick one and put it in your mouth.

We went with the Napoli, a melt-in-your-mouth marriage of taleggio, sopressata, toscano, calabrese, pomodoro, Nittolo’s own four-cheese mix, and provolone ($16.95). It was, in a word, a wonder. One of us ordered a Meatball Parmesean pizza to go. Also wonderous. We’re going back for the Spanish (serrano ham, fig jam, manchego cheese, saffron honey, and marcona brittle) this week.

Come April, we’re going back again; Nittolo’s is opening its fine dining menu — think: salmon, seabass, bluefin tuna, lamb, waygu — and, for the month of April only, offering three-course meals for $39. Rest assured, pizza will still be served, to go or in the elegant white-tableclothed dining room from 11am to 3:30pm (or anytime at the outdoor patio bar). And 3:30pm–5pm brings its own joy: ½ off food and 1/3 off drinks. But the dinner session starts promptly at 5:30pm. If the pizza is any indication, we recommend you be there for it.

Find Nittolo’s Pizza at 104 Main St., Lake Leelanau. (231) 994-2400, www.nittolospizza.com