On August 1, North Pacific Beach’s Turquoise Street will welcome Ambrogio15, an Italian pizzeria borne from the minds of Milan-turned-San Diego residents Giacomo Pizzigoni, Andrea Burrone and Luca Salvi, taking over the former Table 926 location. With a focus on authentic Milanese gourmet pizza made with dough recipes developed in Italy, Ambrogio15 will put emphasis on high-quality Italian ingredients, a holistic approach to food and beverage, sustainable agriculture and a deep love for Milan - evident in Ambrogio15’s imported Italian flours, cold cuts and cheeses, massive rotating turbo gas-firing oven and a visual concept created by esteemed Italian designers.
“We spotted a big gap in the pizza market,” said Giacomo Pizzigoni, co-founder of Ambrogio15 and current partner of European startup We Deliver Taste, which aims to increase transparency and high-quality product trade in the global food supply chain. “Here they use the word gourmet everywhere and it doesn’t mean a lot, but to us it means very high quality ingredients and being innovative about how you make the pizza - the technique, the flour, the different types of dough. I knew the market here was behind and portrayed Italy in the wrong way. We decided to go on two parallel paths; the first is the food and the second is the design and ambiance.”
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| Scrocchiarella Prosciutto Crudo & Burrata |
The restaurant’s unique crusts use stone-ground, organic Petra flour from the Molino Quaglia in Northeast Italy, which is put through the BIGA process to allow for full flavor and nutrients. The GMO-free, organic Petra flours contain enzymes that make pizzas easier to digest and contain one-tenth the fat found in traditional pizza dough. Crust styles include a paper-thin pizza that uses “0” flour and bakes in two minutes, whole-wheat pizza, soft Nuvola (Cloud) Focaccia and crunchy Scrocchiarella – all baked in a rotating turbo gas-firing oven that handles seven 15” pizzas at once.
Ambrogio15’s libations will include fifteen San Diego craft beers and small batch, biodynamic wines from a consortium of small-scale wine makers in Italy. Called CoViBio, the coalition represents six different Italian regions and focuses on biodiversity, sustainability and natural agriculture.
Renowned Italian architect Roberto Giussani was tapped to create a dining ambience reminiscent of Milan - the capital of design and fashion. Inside, guests will find cut-out, colorful ceilings flanked by crisply patterned wall murals that tell stories about Milan’s history. The lighting, dough mixer, oven, pizza counter, coffee cups and more have been directly imported from Italy.
Ambrogio15 will be open daily from 3pm to 10pm on weekdays, 11pm on weekends, and is located at 926 Turquoise Avenue in North Pacific Beach. Visit Ambrogio15 online at the soon-to-launch website ambrogio15.com, call 858.291.8650, and check out the menus below for more information.
