Photo courtesy of Pupatella
Pupatella pizza is coming to Alexandria.
A Neopolitan Pizza restaurant, Pupatella, has filed paperwork with the City of Alexandria to open a location in Alexandria at 700 Slaters Lane. The location was previously Sam's Custom Cleaners.
The popular pizza restaurant first opened in Arlington in 2010 after serving pizza out of food carts at Metro stations. The company had $2.5 million in annual sales by 2015. It was started by Enzo Algarme and his wife Anastasiya Laufenberg. Algarme hails from Naples, Italy and told Pizza Today that the name Pupatella comes from a term of endearment for his grandmother, "little doll."
Each Pupatella restaurant bakes its pizza in a wood-fired pizza oven.
Algarme personally met Forno Napoletano, a producer of pizza ovens in Naples, according to the Puppatella website. Algarme was impressed by their dedication to tradition, quality, and most of all the quality of the pizzas coming from Forno Napoletano.
The oven bricks were created using volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius, renowned for outstanding heat retention, allowing for higher, more even temperature of the oven.
Due to the high temperature of the wood-fired oven, Neapolitan pizzas develop what is known as “leopard spots," according to the Pupatella website. They are small spots (about size of a dime) on the crust and are a distinct characteristic of true Neapolitan pizza.
Pupatella has locations in North Arlington, South Arlington, Dupont Circle, Reston, Mosaic in Fairfax, Springfield, Leesburg and Richmond.
According to the filing with the City, the new Alexandria restaurant will feature an outdoor dining area with seating for 34 and bar seats for five, in a 550-square foot outdoor area on private property.
Proposed hours for the new restaurant are: Sunday-Thursday: 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., and 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
The restaurant will offer table and bar service and pizza delivery. There will be 15 parking spaces on site.
No word yet on an opening date.
