On the Menu
Tutta Bella

Neapolitan Pizzeria

Location: Seattle

Cuisine: Italian

Opened: Jan. 2, 2004

Address: 4918 Rainier Ave. S.

Best-selling items:
pizza Tutta Bella, with tomato, mozzarella, caramelized onions, hot Italian sausage, herbs, mushrooms and Parmigiano;
salad of mozzarella, shaved fennel, cherry tomato halves, cucumber, basil, romaine and Dijon-balsamic vinaigrette;
tiramisu

Average check: lunch, $20; dinner, $36

Average number of pizzas sold in a day: 350

Most pizzas sold in a day: 800

Food cost: 24 percent

Labor cost: "low 30s"

Beer and wine sales: 18%

Dessert sales: 6%

Menu makers: Joe Fugere, Brian Gojdics, Karen Malody

Web site: www.tuttabellapizza.com

(Sept. 7) — Joe Fugere's Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizzeria in the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle is selling a lot of Neapolitan-style, thin-crust pizzas with the blessing of the Verace Pizza Napoletana, or VPN.

Tutta Bella kitchen manager Brian Gojdics with one of the 11-inch pizzas just pulled from the 1,100-degree, applewood-burning brick oven

Recognized by the Italian government as the official arbiter of what constitutes an authentic Neapolitan pizza, the nonprofit VPN certifies pizza makers and pizzerias that they say respect the tradition of Neapolitan pizza making.

Among other things, the VPN says tradition requires the use of handmade dough from low-gluten flour, San Marzano tomatoes grown in the soil of Italy's Mount Vesuvius and a wood-fired oven.

"I've had customers come up and hug me and say, 'I've been waiting for someone to do this,'" Fugere, a former Starbucks Corp. national beverage manager, says of the reception that he and his establishment have been afforded by some fans of Neapolitan pizza.

Fugere trained as a "pizzaioli," or pizza maker, in Los Angeles and Italy under the auspices of The VPN. As of April his restaurant was one of just 10 in the United States and 114 worldwide certified as authentic by VPN standards.

Tutta Bella is humming, with annualized sales now approaching $1.5 million, says Fugere, a Seattle native of Italian heritage who grew up a few miles from the restaurant. He explains that his old neighborhood and Columbia City, which is undergoing an economic revitalization, are part of an area once affectionately known as "Garlic Gulch" because of its large Italian population.

The inspiration for Tutta Bella came, in part, from his late grandmother's reminiscing about the wonders of a true Italian pizza, Fugere says. Also a factor, he adds, was his own touching-and-tasting experience with the yeasty, saucy and cheesy delicacies that can be folded and eaten by hand or consumed with a fork and knife.

Explaining why he set up shop in a registered historic building in Columbia City for the relatively low price of $200,000, Fugere says: "I wanted to open a restaurant for families in an underserved neighborhood like this. My advertising has all been by word-of-mouth, and there was a nearly instantaneous embracing of the VPN concept," he notes.

Fugere, who has acquired additional space and nearly tripled his seating space since the pizzeria opened, started with eight employees but now has 42. Brian Gojdics is the kitchen manager, and Renee Morgan is the restaurant manager.

Consultant Karen Malody of Seattle's Culinary Options helped refine recipes, develop salad dressings, calculate food costs and produce employee-training manuals, Fugere reports. She remains on the menu development team with Gojdics and Fugere.

The 11-inch pizzas served by Tutta Bella are cooked in 90 seconds in the applewood-burning brick oven that features a domed cooking space and a 5-inch-thick deck. Fugere says temperatures within the oven range from 850 to 1,100 degrees, making it easy to achieve the small char marks on the crust that are a signature of Neapolitan pizzas.

Of production challenges, he says, "The dough needs to be made in a specific manner — it's a 24-hour proofing process — and we go through a ton of it." He explains that the toppings are prepared fresh but adds that some must be partially or fully cooked before adorning pizzas.

A graduate of Washington State University's school of hospitality management, Fugere worked for Westin hotels and at a now-defunct, three-unit concept in Seattle called Capons Rotisserie Chicken. During his three years with Starbucks, which saw him, among other things, work on supply chain refinement overseas, Fugere says he also served for a time as the company's national food manager.

Speaking of the circumstances that have contributed to the early success of Tutta Bella, Fugere acknowledges, "So many things came together at this location — the historic building being available, the fortunate situation with the equipment being here from another restaurant, a favorable lease and the amazing support from the community." Though he knows that good fortune as well as good planning and good old-fashioned hard work played a part in the fortunes of Tutta Bella, he confesses that he would like to open more units.

"I do have a background with chains, and I am interested in that," he says of multiunit development.

— Alan J. Liddle