Mmm… Food

Praising Spacca Napoli here on my blog makes me happy, and maybe makes you readers happy and want to go out and try it, but seriously? this place doesn’t need anymore good press.  You should already know about it.  it’s located in Ravenswood at the corner of Sunnyside and Ravenswood and their restaurants website boasts 45 separate reviews from 28 different sources.  How many places can say that??  Sure some of the Chicago classics that have been around for forever have review lists way longer than this, but this place has only been open for 2+ years!!  It opened on Valentines day of 2006 and has been serving it’s Neapolitan pizza since. 

April and I dined there last nite, trying one of the 3 special pizzas offered.  I wish I would have paid better attention to the fine list of ingredients so I could tick them off to you here, but I’m lost in the head space of thinking about the incredible crust that the pizza had.  It was paper thin, but chewy!!  Not hard and crisp, but soft and pliant.  We both were reminded of Naan, the Indian flat bread, which has a similar texture.  The pizza is baked in a wood-burning brick oven that was specially designed for the shop and it cooks the pizza to perfection.  It’s all about the oven, which the Chicago Tribune (in one of it’s five reviews) refers to lovingly as being built “in the tradition of classic Neapolitan ovens, similar to the ones built in Pompeii 2,000 years ago.”  It must be the key.  The high temperatures that take the dough and cook it just so…  They’re on to something here!!! The same is true of Naan.  You can only achieve that perfect texture by using a Tandoor oven made of clay.  The intense heat quickly cooks the bread and leaves it melt in your mouth delicious.

The take away lesson from this?  You have to go out and try it.  This is not something you can do at home.  Your oven at home will never be able to do what this oven can.  You have to try it, in the restaurant, moments after it has left the interior heat, been slapped on a plate and brought to your table piping hot.  This is when you need to eat it.  Now!  No waiting and taking it home to enjoy in the comfort of your own home.  Do it now, in the shop,  eat eat eat!!!