Of all the many styles of pizza, thin-crust, wood-fired Neapolitan is arguably the most famous — and the original. Sicily has its thick, focaccia-like pizza. The area around Rome has pinsa, made with rice and soy flour to give it more lightness and chew. Lesser known is Apulian pizza, coming from the southeastern city of Bari.
The Apulian style is ultra-thin and crisp. Unlike Neapolitan, which must be made with ultrafine 00 flour, this style is also made with type 1 flour, which also includes some of the bran, making it more rustic.
Places that make Apulian pizza are rare in the states, with a peppering of spots in central Connecticut, northern New Jersey, Santa Monica — and now, Sacramento.
A homecoming of sorts
Dodici Pizza, opened last month in Alkali Flats, is an offshoot of popular midtown Italian restaurant Adamo’s Kitchen.
Manager Jackson Wells adds toppings to a pizza order at Dodici Pizza in Sacramento on March 6. JOSÉ LUIS VILLEGAS jvillegas@sacbee.com
Father-daughter team John and Chiara Adamo intended to open the restaurant before the onset of COVID-19.
“My parents had just bought the building, and the space was vacant,” Chiara Adamo said. “I had been traveling for sports, and there had been this pizza place in Denver. And I just thought how cool the whole scene was, the vibe. And I thought it’d be really cool if one day we could, like, open up and do a takeout window.”
Then she found out she was pregnant with twin girls. The Adamos decided to lease the space instead. Restaurateur Chris Jarosz of Broderick Roadhouse came in, opening Anonimo Pizza in early 2022.
Jarosz was tragically killed in a traffic accident the following year. Anonimo’s general manager, Juanes Ramazzini, relaunched it as Luccas before ultimately relocating operations to sister restaurant Bambina’s Pizza & Pasta early last year. This created an opportunity for the Adamos.
Help from the homeland
In order to deliver the most authentic experience, they decided to bring in outside help. They knew consultant Joe Ciardiello through a friend.
“You know how Italians are, a friend, a cousin, everyone’s at some point, it all just becomes one big melting pot,” Chiara Adamo said. “We wanted to do something different. And had something that he specialized in. It allowed us to use two different types of flour to kind of get the chew that we wanted.”
Co-owner Chiara Adamo at Dodici Pizza in Sacramento on March 6. JOSÉ LUIS VILLEGAS jvillegas@sacbee.com
Ciardiello originally hails from Bari but works in Naples now. He’s been making pizza since he was a child, and professionally since he was 18. He came to Sacramento to train the staff and to share his unique pizza recipe. With Ciardiello leaving in the next few weeks, manager Jackson Wells has taken up the mantle.
The crust of the matter
“Our process is creating our dough and fermenting it for 48 hours. It creates a light, chewy crust that has a good crunch to it and a very solid, durable base,” Wells said.
In the kitchen, Wells grabs a round of dough resting in semolina flour. He deftly pats it out, pushing his knuckles around the perimeter to create a cornice. He turns the dough to keep it into a round. He then picks it up and flips it back and forth between his hands to stretch the dough further to a 13-inch diameter.
Manager Jackson Wells prepares pizza dough at Dodici Pizza in Sacramento on March 6. JOSÉ LUIS VILLEGAS jvillegas@sacbee.com
The pizza is then lightly topped, and a thin metal peel is swiftly swept under it to convey it to the ovens. At about 600 degrees for just shy of four minutes, the pizzas come out hot, fresh and crisp. The most popular option is the Margherita ($15).
“Lots and lots of Margherita, plus the diavola ($17.50) and the rosemarino ($20.50) are probably our top three sellers,” Wells said.
On our visit, they were in the process of swapping out some menu items. The autunno ($23) — with pumpkin, porcini mushrooms and guanciale — is being replaced with a more summery estiva ($22). It features yellow tomato sauce, prosciutto, fig jam and almonds. The Norvegese ($21), a sort of bagel and lox on a pizza, is being subbed for a spicy Calabrese ($18), with San Marzano tomatoes, burrata, crumbled taralli (an Apulian cracker) and ‘nduja, a spicy, spreadable kind of sausage from Calabria.
Salads are also notable. The Campagnola ($10) utilizes an unexpected base of julienned zucchini combined with pomegranate seeds, mint and basil.
For dessert, don’t miss the cannoli ($9.50), a crisp, fried tube filled with sweetened whipped ricotta mascarpone. Though if you insist on sticking with pizza throughout, the Nutella-topped rosalia ($15) beckons.
Lauren Titus, Lindsay Foletta, and Kathleen Gormley enjoy their lunch at Dodici Pizza on March 6. JOSÉ LUIS VILLEGAS jvillegas@sacbee.com
Dodici Pizza
Address: 400 12th St., Alkali Flats
Hours: Lunch service is 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday-Friday. Dinner service is 5-9 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday. Dinner service is 5-10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Closed Mondays.
Phone: 916-754-2649
Website: dodici-pizzeria.com
Vegetarian options: Plenty
Noise level: The restaurant is all hard surfaces, so it can get boisterous when busy.
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Sean Timberlake is the food and dining reporter for The Sacramento Bee. He has been writing professionally for nearly 30 years, and about food for 20. A variety of well-known outlets have published his work, including Food Network, Cooking Channel, CNN, Sunset Magazine and SF Weekly.