The new Wedgewood-Houston restaurant combines long-fermented dough, custom cocktails and mid-century motorsport design inside a restored 1940s trucking depot.
In a city newly adorned with Michelin stars and an influx of celebrity chef attention, Moto Moda — equal parts pizzeria, motorsport shrine and mid-century Italian daydream — almost feels like a rebuttal.
But the people behind the new Wedgewood-Houston spot, opening Nov. 20, have lofty aspirations: creating a restaurant and cocktail bar that can stand shoulder to shoulder with some of Nashville’s best restaurants while refusing to be stuffy.
“We’re going to have that classic high-level Nashville hospitality, where it’s casual and cool, but everyone is a badass professional,” said Andy Mumma of Chopper Tiki, who’s partnered with Moto Moda founder Jimmy Pruitt to help bring the concept to life.
Motorcycle culture, but make it a restaurant
Pruitt founded Moto Moda in 2011 as a motorcycle gear and vintage riding apparel pop-up, eventually growing it into a tiny retail shop with a loyal following. Mumma came on board a few years later to help turn Pruitt’s vision of vintage motorsports culture into a food-and-drink destination.
The first attempt stalled when their original space fell through, but the pause proved useful. When they eventually found a sturdy 1940s-era trucking depot at the Standard Assembly development, the concept expanded into something more ambitious.
Now, the 5,000-square-foot restaurant displays vintage motorcycles from the 1950s to today like sculptures on an elevated platform in the center of the dining room, which is filled with custom art and a small retail hub of Moto Moda apparel and accessories.
“It’s a part of our aesthetic and part of our history,” Pruitt said. “It has a really unique look. You can’t really compare it to another place.”
Moto Moda is uniquely its own, Mumma echoed.
“It’s going to be a destination for people that just kind of love motorsport culture, but it’ll also be a destination for people that want the best pizza and interesting cocktails in the city,” he said.
A menu with Italian-American appeal
To further elevate the concept, Mumma and Pruitt pulled in founding Pinky Ring chef Wes Scoggins to create a menu that would reflect the space’s aesthetic.
“We kept asking ourselves, ‘What food do we love?” Mumma said. “And the answer was always pizza — specifically New York-style pizza, this uniquely Italian-American thing we both grew up loving. And then we found Chef Wes, an absolute madman who developed the Pinky Wing program, got Roberta’s off the ground here, and is insanely talented with dough and fermentation.”
Scoggins worked with local yeast lab Bootleg Biology to develop a custom starter culture from wild yeast collected in the Texas Hill Country and from Tennessee wildflowers.
From it, he makes a multi-day fermented dough that forms the foundation for pies like the Redline, with soppressata, shaved fennel bulb, fennel greens and a house chili crisp made with Calabrian chiles, Sichuan peppercorns and lemon.
“It’s a really amazing flavor profile,” Scoggins said. “It hits you spicy in multiple ways, with a lot of citrus, brightness, it’s just super unique. Everyone who’s tried it before has just said, ‘Yep, this is it.'”
Pizza with flavor and style
Scoggins’s Highside pie is an elevated take on a white pie with local mushrooms and fresh thyme. It’s finished with a signature sauce made with dark black tea and infused into black garlic oil emulsified with roasted mushrooms.
The end result is a white pizza dotted with glossy black oil, like something that emerged from a mechanic’s fever dream.
“It’s this really great high contrast of super, super creamy white base with these just beautiful glossy black dots all over ― just the color contrast and the visual appeal is really special,” Scoggins said.
The antipasti lineup leans into Italian street-food tradition with montanara (fried mini pizzas), portafoglio folded pies, house-pickled giardiniera, crispy olives, and a lunch menu of focaccia sandwiches made from long-fermented dough.
Desserts keep the mid-century spirit alive with classics like tiramisu and a seasonal cheesecake inspired by “fantasy” flavors. The first: a blue raspberry cheesecake made from real fruit blended with spirulina for its unearthly electric blue.
At the bar, manager Corey James echoes Mota Moda’s Italian spirit with classic spritzes, Negronis and a strong amari and vermouth program alongside a tight list of wines by the glass and local beers.
The best part? The bikes are for sale — and yes, you can roll out on one with a pie strapped to the back.
“I don’t know any place you can come in and get a slice and buy a motorcycle,” Mumma said. “It’s also going to be the home of free pizza with the purchase of a motorcycle.”
Moto Moda is at715 Merritt Ave.
Mackensy Lunsford is the senior dining reporter and critic for The Tennessean. Reach her at mlunsford@tennessean.com.
Dining and Cooking