Having helped cupcakes go vogue with their Sprinkles concept, founders Candace and Charles Nelson are turning their attention to Neapolitan pizza pies with Pizzana.
The Los Angeles-based Pizzana, with four locations in California and one in Texas, depends heavily on off-premises sales but still provides a chic atmosphere for those customers wishing to dine in.
The Nelsons founded Pizzana in 2017, partnering with actor Chris O'Donnell and chef Daniele Uditi, a native of Naples.
“Pizzana is meant to be a Neapolitan pizzeria,” said Charles Nelson, who serves as CEO, “but a new take on that traditional Neapolitan pizza.”
The dough is fermented for 48 hours and baked at a lower temperature — around 500 degrees — than traditional Neapolitan pizza.
“Our chef came from a family of bread bakers,” Nelson said. “So we wanted to make a Neapolitan-style pizza that still had slow dough and really top-notch ingredients. Our tomatoes are real San Marzanos. Our cheese comes from a smaller farm in Italy.”
Toppings provide a hint of California, such as the pizza with San Marzano tomatoes, squash blossom, burrata, and cherry tomatoes. The menu also offers salads, sandwiches, and seasonal pastas.
The settings are small but posh. “It’s a super simple concept,” said Nelson, “and a really kind of luxurious setting.”
Desserts are curated by Candace Nelson, he added, and include an olive oil chocolate cake, a salted-caramel panna cotta and a recently added cannoli.
“The biggest difference between Sprinkles and Pizzana is that at Sprinkles, I was the baker and head chef,” Candace Nelson said. “At Pizzana, we have partnered with a master pizzaiola, Daniele Uditi, and have built a menu around his very special dough. This slow dough comes from the tradition of bread baking and it rises over a period of 48 hours, which allows it to be more digestible. It has that characteristic char and chew that a Neapolitan pizza does, but after eating it you feel like it was a light dining experience.”
She said Pizzana is following the Sprinkles playbook, expanding from California to Texas with company-owned locations.
Charles Nelson said both concepts are heavily focused on off-premises business.
“We're targeting more than half of our business to go,” he said. “That's why the locations are small. We have 40 seats in our Dallas location, and some have even fewer seats in California.”
Candace Nelson added that both concepts are product-driven.
“Both are very edited, with very edited, curated menus,” she said. “Cupcakes were the star at Sprinkles. Pizzas clearly are the star at Pizzana. At both concepts, we're taking something that is quite traditional and nostalgic — historical even — and putting a modern, innovative spin on both.”
Charles Nelson noted that they created special boxes for cupcakes at Sprinkles. At Pizzana, the Nelsons have design rings that hold the pizza above the table and allow space for items underneath.
“That allows for people to really sort of explore the menu a little bit more and not be bumping things on the table,” Candace Nelson said.
The full-service pizza concept also takes training of staff very seriously, she added, noting that it starts with the hiring. “You have to make sure that you're hiring people who have the same value system as you,” she said. “For us, it's really about that generosity of spirit, that hospitality, that sort of team energy.”
Charles Nelson said Pizzana plans to open its sixth location in the Los Angeles area, probably in early October, and the brand is under construction on a store in Houston; it will probably open in early 2024.
“We're looking at other locations in Texas right now,” he said. “We're also looking further east and continuing on a reasonable growth path. I'd like to add five restaurants next year at a minimum.”
The idea for Pizzana emerged accidentally, Candace Nelson said, from a dinner at O’Donnell’s home.
“He had become known for these weekly pizza parties,” she recalled. “He had a pizza chef who would cater pizza out of his wood-burning oven, and so we happened to be invited to one of these parties. I took a bite of this pizza and I thought, ‘Hold on a second: This is something really special, I've got to find out who made this.’”
She marched over to Uditi and his oven, she said. “Daniele actually has a huge sweet tooth, and he loves Sprinkles cupcakes,” Candace Nelson said. “So for the whole night, we just sort of chatted about our love for baking and our love for dough. Granted we work in different types of dough, but we were very like-minded. He happened to mention that he'd always wanted to open a restaurant, and I couldn't help myself. I just said to him, ‘We should do that together.’”
And Pizzana was born.
“Before we knew it,” she said, “we were building a restaurant together, conceptualizing the restaurant and doing all the design. It was really fun but completely accidental. It really came from a true passion for the product itself.”
Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected]
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Hear from Charles Nelson and other Hot Concept founders at CREATE: The Experience, Oct. 1-3 in Palm Springs.