Hold The Anchovies
 Durell Godfrey |
(1/2/2008) Jack Gross drove his family and motor home all the way from North Carolina just to eat Christmas Eve dinner at La Capannina in Wainscott. The pizza (“and everything”) is that good, he said.
Lorenzo Renna, one of the proprietors of La Capannina, wound up on Long Island 18 years ago from Palermo, Sicily. When he got laid off by a Mazda dealership in Smithtown, he worked for a cousin at John’s Pizza in Hampton Bays, and decided he preferred the eastern end of Long Island.
It was there that he learned English and developed an “interest in food making,” he said. “Work got more interesting and I had people who helped me. I got excited about going to work.”
His father was a fisherman, and, Mr. Renna said, “I had no plans when I came over here. I winged it. It was like falling in love [with food]. I was looking at how I could make it better for my life.”
The La Capannina space became available in 1997, after he had been working for the previous owners, who were “two old Italian guys,” according to Mr. Renna. They passed the lease on to him and he will have the option to renew in another five years. Mr. Renna’s business partner is Diego Belfiore.
The partners use traditional recipes for their pizza, pasta, sandwiches, entrees, and salads, but “we added our own touches,” he said. People from Sag Harbor to Montauk go to the pizzeria to eat in or order out.
It doesn’t hurt that the westbound Jitney stop is right in front of the restaurant, but even without that, a steady trove of workers on their way to and from work stop there, as do loyal customers like Mr. Gross and his family. La Capannina also caters, so it seems sensible to be open every day but big holidays, Mr. Renna said.
The two ovens stay on low all night, so that they can be warmed up gradually in the morning to the high temperature required to bake the pizzas, using traditional dough “made the way it has been for thousands of years,” said Mr. Renna.
The Margherita pizza, with plum tomatoes, basil, fresh garlic, and mozzarella, is the all-time favorite, he said, both for slices and take-away. Medium pizzas with a 16-inch diameter cost from $11 to $22; large pizzas, at 18 inches, cost from $13 to $26, depending on what is on top. Additional toppings cost between $4 and $5.
With a winter staff of 8 and a summer staff of 12 on a typical summer weekend, the shop sells from 14 to 18 pizzas (eight slices per pie) in slices, and 200 to 300 pizzas to go.
Customers can even take the dough and toppings and bake their own pizza, although if your return trip home is as far as North Carolina, take a cooler and plenty of ice.