Ever heard of pizza topped with freshly peeled Long Island Clams topped with a garlic and herb sauce? Well now you have. Pizza Vongole is Pizzetteria Brunetti’s signature pizza, and customers are talking about it everywhere. From the classic Margherita to the signature Vongole, Pizzetteria Brunetti offers exquisite pizzas that will make your taste buds water.
Pizzetteria Brunetti is a pizzeria founded by Michael (father) and Jason (son) Brunetti, and is the face of Neapolitan Pizza. Located in Westhampton Beach and the West Village, Pizzetteria Brunetti has a customer who loves pizza. After talking to Michael about his business, his passion and knowledge for Neapolitan pizza was evident and that I can see why so many people appreciate and love Brunetti pizza.
Michael begins by telling about his beginnings in the pizza business. She and Jason were both involved in businesses and all the time wanted to do something together. After Michael started reading about places that served Neapolitan pizza, he decided, “I’m going to make pizza.” Michael tells us that he made Jason an “an offer he couldn’t refuse.” Jason and Michael attended the Neapolitan Cooking School and together fell in love with the new wave of Neapolitan pizza, calling it, “highly cultured and artisanal”.
If you ask any customer of Pizzetteria Brunetti they will tell you that their pizza is like no other, but what makes it so special? Both Michael and Jason started with a basic understanding of what it takes to make great pizza and Michael says finding the perfect recipe “takes a lot of experimentation.” After spending months writing down recipes and throwing them away, they finally found one with “the right taste and consistency in the dough”.
Dough is not the only thing that makes pizza so unique; the sauce is also special. It is produced from San Marzano tomatoes, tomatoes that are grown only in Naples, Italy in the fertile soil near Mount Vesuvius, where they’re kept separate and not homogenized. Brunetti cheese is also imported from Italy. Their excellent mozzarella di bufalo, mozzarella from buffalo milk, is a pizza tradition in Italy, and Brunetti brings it here.
The oven is also produced from materials imported from Italy! They are made of tufo brick and stone from volcanic soil found on Mount Vesuvius. This oven is very particular; they were made very especially of the stone, had to be dome-shaped, and will only be fired with wood. Michael said, “It is ancient technology but there are 3 types of cooking. conduction heat at the base of the oven, radiant heat from a wood fire, and convection heat from emerging flames.” While a gas fire pizza oven generally heats up to 600 degrees, a brick oven heats up to about 1,000 degrees. Michael told us, “the quicker you cook your pizza, the better it will taste.” At Pizzetteria Brunetti, their pizzas bake in 60-90 seconds, leaving puffy edges and all the flavour trapped in the dough.
For all the pizza lovers out there, Pizzetteria Brunetti should be your next stop. Located in Westhampton Beach and the West Village, Brunetti’s will amaze you with its endless pizza possibilities.
Image from Pizzetteria Brunetti
