I’ve been waiting for Sapori di Napoli to open for quite some time. I work next door and one afternoon, quite a while back, I walked out to head home and saw the sign on the side of the building. Curious, I walked by, and one of the fellows who works in the realty company next door saw my curiosity and said that I could go in. He opened the door for me and the Italian brothers we very nice and showed me the wood-fired oven that they had just installed and were trying to cure. Pretty much ever since then I have been waiting for my first taste of wood fired pizza.
According to Decaturites they had a soft open last night but today was Sapori di Napoli’s first official day open. Seeing as I had failed to make anything worthy of left-overs for dinner last night, I popped in for lunch today. Located in a somewhat unassuming retail space off of Decatur’s main drag the interior has been redone quite nicely with exposed brick and light wooden benches along the exterior of the dining space. There is also quite a bit of outdoor seating with your standard black iron tables. Inside each table has a roll of brown paper towels on top, much better than silly tiny napkins when it comes to eating pizza. The way the tables are laid out makes for a convivial almost family style vibe. I found myself chatting with fellow customers, comparing orders, and joking about the giant pizza set before my tiny, eating-alone self. There is an open kitchen with the wood-fired grill shipped from Italy as the center of attention. I was greeted immediately upon entering as were other guests that I saw arrive after me. Service continued to be top-notch throughout my lunch. Though, there did seem to be a bit of a language barrier going on. It did not cause a problem for me though. Quite frankly, if I have to lean a wee bit of Italian to eat here in the future, that’s fine. The food was delicious. I decided to go for broke and order a whole pie although they do have small lunch menu of Panini. Considering that the pie was at least 12″ wide I have enough left over for 2 more meals. I had the STG, with San Marzano tomato, smoked bufala mozzarella, speck and mushrooms. I’ve never had speck before but I knew it was a cured meat product so I figured, how can I go wrong. With a chewy, slightly crisp crust, sweet tomatoes, smokey mozzarella and the juicy meat this pizza was a delicious and filling lunch. Though in the future, if I order a whole pie, I’ll go with friends so that we can split the food and the bill. The pizza was $17 before tax and tip which is pretty standard for this quality and style of pizza. In addition to pizza, SdN also serves calzones, pasta, salads and antipasti such as arancini.
