{"id":122936,"date":"2026-02-04T19:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T19:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/122936\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T19:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T19:04:11","slug":"godfather-of-japans-neapolitan-pizza-scene-is-popping-up-in-manhattan-this-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/122936\/","title":{"rendered":"Godfather of Japan\u2019s Neapolitan Pizza Scene Is Popping Up in Manhattan This Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pizzamaker widely regarded as the godfather of Japan\u2019s Neapolitan pizza movement, Susumu Kakinuma, is heading to New York City for the first time: From Tuesday, February 24 through Saturday, February 28, Kakinuma will cook at Sake No Hana<\/a> (145 Bowery, at Broome Street) on the Lower East Side, with reservations available now on OpenTable<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The news follows the recent pop-up and announcement that Pizza Studio Tamaki<\/a>, from chef Tsubasa Tamaki, is moving into the Moody Tongue space in the East Village.<\/p>\n

The collaboration is years in the making. Ralph Scamardella, one of Tao Group\u2019s chef partners, went to Pizza Savoy in Tokyo with Jason Hall and Yoshi Kojima (both culinary VPs for Tao Group) over six years ago. \u201cWe had a great experience. We took pictures with the guys,\u201d Scamardella says. When they returned two years ago, they learned \u201cthe guy who had started Pizza Savoy left and started his own pizzeria\u201d named Seirinkan. They went to check it out. \u201cThere was a long line, and you couldn\u2019t get a reservation, and in perfect New York style we went up, breaking past the front desk and pulling our way in,\u201d Scamardella says.<\/p>\n

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Seirinkan<\/p>\n

After that visit, Scamardella followed Kakinuma on Instagram. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t have many followers, he doesn\u2019t post much,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

When Tao Group decided to activate the underutilized pizza oven at Sake No Hana, Scamardella contacted Kakinuma. \u201cI just reached out to him on Instagram. And he didn\u2019t answer; reached out again, he didn\u2019t answer. So I had Yoshi reach out to him in Japanese,\u201d he said \u2014 and he responded. After several conversations and an in-person meeting in Tokyo with Kojima, Kakinuma agreed to come to New York.<\/p>\n

Hall explains that Japanese pizzaiolos \u201cfrequently toss sea salt onto the oven floor, which produces a saltier, smokier, more savory crust \u2014 distinct from the milder flavor profiles typical in the U.S.\u201d The dough has what Hall calls a mochi-mochi texture \u2014 \u201cspringy, elastic, and chewy\u201d \u2014 rather than airy or crisp. High heat and fragrant woods like cedar add an aromatic char.<\/p>\n

For the Sake No Hana residency, Tao Group is importing Seirinkan\u2019s flour from Tokyo via one of its bluefin tuna suppliers, according to Scamardella, with many Tokyo pizza masters milling their own flour to their specifications.<\/p>\n

The menu includes three Seirinkan pizzas, including the Bianco with fresh wasabi, plus appetizers like octopus and snow beef tartare. Sake No Hana dishes like hamachi crudo and wafu carbonara will also be available.<\/p>\n

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Seirinkan<\/p>\n

The timing puts both Kakinuma and his former student, Tamaki, in New York for pop-ups in the same month<\/a>. Tamaki trained under Kakinuma at Savoy (the predecessor to Seirinkan) before opening Pizza Studio Tamaki in 2018, according to Time Out Tokyo<\/a>. Both use Tokyo\u2019s signature techniques \u2014 tossing salt onto the oven floor for extra char, plus longer fermentation times \u2014 but their approaches diverge from there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like meeting the prime minister of pizza,\u201d Tamaki told Eater in 2017<\/a>, as he remembered meeting Kakinuma. He went on to spend years studying under him. \u201cHe didn\u2019t talk. It was like the military. He was kind and brilliant, but he didn\u2019t say much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tamaki, roughly two decades younger, is more of a tinkerer. Born in Okinawa, he initially wanted to be an architect before discovering pizza. It took him 700 attempts<\/a> to perfect his flour blend, according to chef Andrea Strong, on the Strong Buzz<\/a>. Whereas Kakinuma sticks to minimalism in terms of toppings, Tamaki experiments with smoked mozzarella, dramatic blistering, and cedar-scented crusts.<\/p>\n

Before the residency begins, Tao Group plans to take Kakinuma on a Staten Island pizza tour, Scamardella says. \u201cHe\u2019s enamored with Staten Island and Wu-Tang and all that stuff. He wants to see it like it\u2019s the Emerald City, Wizard of Oz.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Inside<\/a><\/p>\n

Inside Sake No Hana. Sake No Hana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The pizzamaker widely regarded as the godfather of Japan\u2019s Neapolitan pizza movement, Susumu Kakinuma, is heading to New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2372,75,84,83,9,24,63,3988],"class_list":["post-122936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-dining-out-in-ny","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-restaurant-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}