The Italian Job
Farina’s Shiny New Pizzeria on Valencia

A lot can happen in 60 seconds.

Joe Montana can engineer a touchdown drive. The earth can make 1/1440th of its rotation. Nic Cage can steal a car.

But most excitingly: someone can make you a pizza.

It’s not delivery, it’s not DiGiorno, it’s Farina Pizza & Cucina Italiana, a new sanctuary of Neapolitan pies, Bolognese pastries and handmade pasta, soft-opening next week on Valencia.

What you’ve got here is a temple of Naples-style pizza-making. The temple’s altar: an oven made by card-carrying master pizzaiolo Antonio Langella, using sand from Mount Vesuvius and water from the Gulf of Naples. (And a lock of Sophia Loren’s hair, presumably.) All two metric tons of it is hidden behind black tile. And most importantly, it cooks a pizza in 60 seconds flat.

The best seats in the house: the white-leather stools at the marble bar, directly facing the oven. You can drink a Menabrea Ambrata and watch as Antonio assembles the ingredients for your margherita: dough made of Caputo flour, tomatoes that haven’t seen US soil until now and mozzarella from Neapolitan water buffalo. (The best kind of water buffalo.)

Also, there’s a separate takeout entrance for croissants and bomboloni in the morning. And after that, tacos.

Kidding: it’s pizza. Definitely pizza.