Neapolitan dream

Hankering for a slice? I asked Robert Masullo of the new Masullo Pizza (2711 Riverside Boulevard) what sets the Naples-style pizzas he’s baking apart from most American pies:

“The single most important thing is the temperature of the oven. At 550-600 degrees, you can’t achieve the same things you can at 800, 825 degrees—the pizza doesn’t bake as fast, the crust doesn’t bubble up the same way.

“The quality of the ingredients. American pizzas overwhelm you with the amount of stuff, and you get this fondue-like quality with mediocre dough submerged under sauce. We’re using quality cheese, Fra’Mani sausage, Niman Ranch bacon and produce from local farms. We try to present a local, fresh-flavored cuisine using those same things you’d find in a true Neapolitan pizzeria but adapting it to this area.

“We [take] a less-is-more approach. It’s not supposed to be this caloric gut bomb that leaves you feeling [like], ‘Ugh, I won’t do that again.’”