Dining review: A taste of Naples in every pie

The best seat at Settebello Pizzeria Napolitana may just be the hottest.

Sure you can sit at a table and chat, with a mural of the creepy clown Pulcinella, or Punch, looking over your shoulder, his eyes following your fork’s every move. Or at a table outside, looking across Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena at Cliff’s used books and an Indian buffet joint.

But then you’d miss the show from the high stools overlooking the domed oven and the warm glow within of oak and apple branches bringing the heat to 800 degrees. The gorgeous brick oven, handmade in Italy, is the heart of the bright, glass-fronted dining room, crisping pizza dough in a little over a minute.

This restaurant, part of a small chain that includes Las Vegas and Salt Lake City outlets, is about bringing, literally, the taste of Italy to America. It’s part of Vera Pizza Napolitano, a group established in Naples, Italy, in the 1980s to protect the Napolese style of pizza making. Members must use specific ingredients for the dough, which may only be worked by hand, never touching a rolling pin. The pizzas must be cooked on the surface of a wood-fired oven.

At Settebello, the flour is imported from a mill in Naples, the prosciutto from Parma, the Parmesan from Modena, the plum tomatoes from San Marzano. The pancetta is from Seattle, but can you quibble? (And the music is from an Italian pop radio station.)

The menu, not surprisingly, is pizza heavy and pizza strong, with several salads offered as starters. The involtini di prosciutto is served like a salad hand roll, with velum-paper-thin sheets of prosciutto wrapped around baby arugula and tangy goat cheese, and sprinkled with Parmigiano Reggiano shavings, olive oil and a balsamic vinegar reduction. What was it that Nora Ephron wrote about capers? They don’t make anything taste better, they just make it taste like capers? Prosciutto is a caper’s diametrical opposite. Everything’s better with prosciutto.

The pizzas are chewy, thin crusts, decorated with bubbles and tiny char spots and covered with a variety of toppings. No pepperoni or Hawaiian-style here. The settebello is spread with crushed tomatoes, then roasted fennel sausage and mushrooms, pancetta, mozzarella, basil and, best of all, toasted pine nuts. The bianca is like a mashup of salad and pizza, a tomato-less pie with prosciutto crudo, arugula, Parmesan, mozzarella and olive oil. Love that prosciutto.

The best pizza, however, may be the simplest. The margherita DOC starts with crushed tomatoes covered with chewy, delicious blops of imported buffalo mozzarella, then Parmesan, basil and olive oil. (DOC stands for Denominazione di Origine Controllata, which boils down to meaning you’re eating the real thing.) You don’t need anything more on a pie (not even prosciutto). Especially one with this much history.

The story goes that a flatbread covered with mozzarella, tomatoes and basil — red, white and green in honor of Italy’s new tricolor flag — was concocted in 1871 for Princess Margherita of Savoy. Thus was born the margherita pizza.

Settebello offers a few desserts, including cannoli, tiramisu and a kind of ice cream Reese’s on steroids. The fist-sized ball of peanut butter gelato surrounds a soft caramel and is covered in a hard crust of milk chocolate. It’s not made by Settebello’s kitchen, but by the international dessert company Bindi. But it’s still amazing. The best thing on the dessert menu, however, comes straight from the fires of the oven — a pizza crust sprinkled with powdered sugar, dotted with fresh banana slices and drizzled with Nutella. Have it with a cappuccino and a view of the flaming apple wood.

REBECCA BRYANT is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and Caribbean Travel & Life.

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Settebello Pizzeria Napolitana

Where: 625 E. Colorado Blvd. Pasadena

When: Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Prices: Salads and antipasti $5 to $14; pizzas $9 to $14; desserts $5 to $8

Contact: (626) 765-9550