Restaurant Review: Spacca Napoli

Spacca Napoli
1760 W. Sunnyside
Chicago

I've always loved wood-fired oven pizzas. One of my favorite restaurants in Atlanta was Fritti, which creates delicious wood oven pizzas. Chicago, of course, is known for its own Chicago-style deep dish pizza. Sorry, but I'm not a big fan. It's too much. Too much crust. Too much sauce. Way too much cheese.

Recently, I read in Chicago Magazine about a new wood-oven place called Coalfire. We decided to go there for our anniversary. However, when, the day arrived we had second thoughts about taking half the day to go downtown. After doing some research, we discovered a place called Spacca Napoli, which actually got better reviews than Coalfire and which was more conveniently located in Ravenswood--and promised easy street parking!

We were highly pleased with our choice. Spacca Napoli was divine. We started with the house salad, a lovely mix of fresh greens with cherry tomatoes and pit-in olives. It was drizzled with a nicely sweet/tart balsamic vinaigrette and served with flavorful bread.

For the pizza, I chose the classic margherita and Jon chose the Funghi e Salsiccia. Both came out perfectly crisp with blackened spots around the edges and a slightly wet center. Perfect for this type of pizza.

Because it's such a simple combination, the ingredients for a margherita--cheese, sauce, basil--must be top notch. These clearly were. If there's any criticism, it's that it could have used a bit more basil. There was nothing to criticize about Jon's sausage and mushroom pie. The sausage was amazing--tender and perfectly seasoned. This was some of the best pizza I've ever had and we will surely return often.

A Twist on Pizza

J loves pizza. I like it too but I'm not always in the mood for red sauce and pepperoni, so I adapted this recipe from Cooking Light.

Dough:
1/2 cup warm water
1 teaspoon dry yeast
1 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Combine warm water and yeast in a large bowl; let stand 5 minutes. Add 1 cup flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt to yeast mixture; stir until blended. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Knead dough until elastic (7-8 minutes) adding remaining flour, a little at a time, to prevent dough from sticking to hands. Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning to coat top. Cover and let rise about 45 minutes. While dough rises, prepare topping.

Topping:
1 teaspoon dried thyme
3 ounces pancetta, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/8 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 pound fresh asparagus spears, trimmed
1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup shaved Parmesan cheese

Saute the pancetta and thyme over medium heat until pancetta is just crisp. Remove from heat and add garlic, salt and pepper.

Preheat oven to 475°.
Punch dough down, re-cover and let rest it 5 minutes. Roll out dough and spread topping evenly it. Arrange the asparagus over topping; sprinkle with mozzarella. Bake at 475° for 10 minutes or until crust is golden. Top with the slivers of Parmesan.