Chefs John Araujo and Matt Nobile met at the Dallas Cowboys stadium and decided to go into business together.
So, in 2016, they opened Bella Gusto Urban Pizzeria near Alma School and Warner roads after working on a business plan for about eight months while they were still living in Dallas.
“When we were considering places, at the time we had family here,” Araujo says. “I had friends that had gone to ASU. I’m originally from Texas, and Matt’s from Tulsa. We thought about it. I read the National Restaurant Association had pinned the Valley to be the next best place for restaurants for the next 10 years. And that was in 2015 when I moved out here.”
While off to a successful start, they found that the pandemic made survival a challenge.
“Talk about a wrench in the gears,” Araujo says. “That was something that really made you think on your feet. Luckily, we built a loyal clientele base and that really helped us out.”
That loyalty was key, especially since the menu offerings lend themselves to more dine-in.
“We still do take-outs,” Araujo adds. “But our food — especially authentic Neapolitan pizza — is best to have right out of the oven. Same with pastas. They’re best fresh right out of the pan.
“At the end of the day, folks like us and they love what we do and they still supported us during that time. We thought a lot of that to-go stuff would fall off, but it’s actually kept up. On top of that, sales have increased. We’re doing great year over year.”
Neapolitan pizza is different from traditional style pizza, mainly due to the ingredients and the temperature it’s cooked at.
“The temperature we’re cooking at is upwards of 900-1000 degrees,” Araujo explains. “The pizza should cook at 90 seconds or less, which produces a soft, chewy dough and not a crispy cracker type crust. There’s only one way we can do it, because we’re cooking at such a high temperature and people expect crispy.”
But Neapolitan pizza isn’t crispy.
“It’s not possible with this style. It’s like going to a Chicago-style deep dish and asking, ‘Can I get it crispy?’ It’s not possible. We can play with the toppings, like if someone wants to change out mushrooms for onions.”
The restaurant doesn’t offer a create-your-own style pizza.
“The flour we use is imported from Italy,” Araujo says. “Also, the ingredients are very minimal, meaning no pizzas are prepared with a lot of toppings such as a supreme.”
The restaurant offers a couple of traditional Neapolitan pizzas and a couple that aren’t traditional style with no traditional toppings.
“One of them is our Santa Merda which is funny because it translates to holy (expletive) in English,” Araujo says. “But that’s what we want folks to say when they eat it: ‘Holy.’ It’s very good.”
The Santa Merda is a white pizza with fresh mozzarella made in-house,” he says. “And then it has our caramelized onion marmalade on it, our Calabrian chili, our spicy soppressata and our bacon marmalade.”
“It’s definitely one of the popular ones,” he adds.
The restaurant’s most popular pizzas are the Santa Merda and Sicilian, the latter comprising fresh mozzarella, meatballs, spicy soppressata, herb ricotta and San Marzano sauce.
“Literally 90% of our menu we make fresh, in-house every day,” Araujo says. “We make our breads, focaccia, pasta, gnocchi, sausage and all of our sauces in-house.”
“We have house-made fettuccini, house-made pappardelle pasta and house-made gnocchi and potato. What you get here is identical pizza and pasta to what you’d get in Italy.”
Despite some stiff competition, business is booming, he says.
“The secret is the authenticity we stick to and the consistency,” Araujo says. “We use the highest-quality ingredients. You can get a pizza anywhere down the block, but you can’t get it with our sauce, our mozzarella or our sausage. Those are the things that differentiate us from everyone else.
“We’ve got a lot of folks either from Italy or have visited there recently, and they come here and they’re excited because this is exactly what they would get back in Naples.”
Bella Gusto Urban Pizzeria
1964 N. Alma School Road, Chandler
bellagustoaz.com, 480-696-4455
Dining and Cooking