Pizzanostra
300 De Haro St, at 16th; Potrero Hill; 415.558.9493
Along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, jewel of the French Riviera, it's astoundingly easy to fall in love -- with pizza! To eat that love, hit Pizzanostra.
The Frenchman who brought you Chez Papa Resto always wanted to open a pizza joint called Pizzanostra, but just hadn't met the right chef -- then he tasted Giovanni Aginolfi's Neapolitan 'za in Nice, felt a girlish blush wash over his face, and nervously asked him and his pizza oven to elope back to the States. The lust-worthy thin crust (which finished 6th in the World Pizza Championship, for real) comes adorned with everything from a mozzarella/prosciutto di parma/arugula Caprese, to a lamb merguez sausage & egg Pied-Noir, to a Mediterranee w/ clams, prawns, and persillade, which is fancy for chopped garlic and parsley (f*cking French). It all goes down in a Potrero warehouse, with room for 30 or so in jumbo dark wood booths, at candle-lit two-tops, and on comfy barstools that mouth-wateringly overlook the open kitchen; there's also seating for another 45 in a handsome sidewalk terrace that mouth-wateringly overlooks the other side of the street.
Not content to just dish pizza, other grub includes a sweet salumi selection, eight flavors of gelato, and way-authentic focaccia that ranges from the Quattro Fromagi to the radicchio/fingerling/rosemary Dolce. To wash it down, there's 35 Italian vinos -- which'll give you the courage to fruitlessly ask Aginolfi's pie home with you, leaving you no option but to booty-Facebook a pizza bagel.
