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Il Leone<\/a><\/p>\n \n 158 Seventh Ave. nr. Garfield St., Park Slope\n <\/p>\n \n Photo: Courtesy Il Leone\n <\/p>\n In 2021, Ben Wexler-Waite opened Il Leone<\/a> on Peaks Island<\/a> off the coast of Portland, Maine. The island, which is connected to the mainland only by ferry, was a big change \u2014 both geographically and culturally \u2014 from Wexler-Waite\u2019s hometown of New York and the Democratic campaigns he worked on in his post-college years. Nevertheless, the seasonal nature of politics left him to explore other interests \u2014 including pizza. Now, he\u2019s turned that into a full-time gig and returned home to open a Brooklyn branch.<\/p>\n The space won\u2019t look too different from its previous tenant, Bar Vinazo: A bar still stretches down the middle of the room, while the white brick walls will be decorated with colorful plates and platters painted with sunflowers and cheerful langoustines. One bar seat will always be reserved for Giorgio, a stone lion that Wexler-Waite introduces with a beaming smile. \u201cI found it in a junkyard on Ischia, wrapped it in tons of bubble wrap, and shipped it back,\u201d he explains. What if business is busier than expected, and they need an extra seat? He promises Giorgio will always have his place, and diners waiting for a table can grab a drink in the backyard.<\/p>\n In Maine, the pizzas are wood-fired, but more stringent regulations on live flames in the city mean he\u2019ll be baking his pies in an Italforni Caruso electric oven. What won\u2019t change is Wexler-Waite\u2019s fanatical devotion to ingredients. He\u2019s looking forward to having readier access to things like fresh buffalo mozzarella, which he\u2019s getting from the Il Casolare dairy in Southern Italy. He\u2019s just as particular about his basil, which he will tell you is as tough to source in New York as it is in Portland. So much has too much moisture or just isn\u2019t the same as you\u2019d find in Italy, plain and simple. So he\u2019s had to figure that out, along with finding a farmer to grow his tomatoes. \u201cI\u2019m friends with Franco Pepe\u2019s tomato farmer, Mimmo,\u201d Wexler-Waite says, referring to the famous pizza man from Naples. \u201cHe gave me these special seeds for a tomato that Franco uses for his most famous pizza, the Margherita Sbagliata.\u201d<\/p>\n For now, he\u2019s excited about a pie made with that mozzarella and greenhouse-grown cherry tomatoes from Maine. It\u2019s inspired by pizza he loves in Campania, where piennolo tomatoes grown at the base of Mount Vesuvius are often used for the margheritas. The cherry-tomato sauce gives him the best approximation of that sauce. \u201cOf course the dream would be to be able to use fresh piennolo here,\u201d he says. (The jarred variety just won\u2019t cut it.)<\/p>\n He\u2019s importing more from Maine than just tomatoes, like lobster for a cheeseless pie with tomato sauce, white wine, chile flakes, basil, parsley, and garlic. There\u2019s an expanded menu, too, with such appetizers as whole artichokes fried in olive oil and meatballs made with grass-fed beef. Tiramisu is whipped up in-house, while lemons in the sorbet come from the Amalfi Coast.<\/p>\n Handfuls of lemons appear on the blue tiles that decorate most of the tables in the space. Wexler-Waite got them in Vietri sul Mare near Salerno. \u201cI spent three months trying to find real hand-painted tiles here,\u201d he says, sighing. Eventually, he gave up and decided to go directly to the source.<\/p>\n Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
\n If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the November 3, 2025, issue of
\n New York\u00a0Magazine.<\/p>\n