Via Napoli Opens Next Month at Epcot!

Via Napoli Ristorante e Pizzeria, the new 300-seat restaurant at the Epcot Italy Pavilion opens next month! This restaurant expands the dining choices at World Showcase and includes pastas, wood-fired pizzas and scoops of sweet gelato.

The pizzeria will be the newest flagship restaurant in the Patina Restaurant Group’s portfolio. One of the special touches at the Epcot location will be the water. It will be imported from a source where the composition most resembles water used in Naples, Italy, to make the authentic Italian dough

The menu was created by CEO Nick Valenti and based on his travels in Southern Italy and his time developing and overseeing the successful Naples 45 Ristorante e Pizzeria in New York. Valenti spent time in Naples studying the art of dough, crust, sauce and oven temperatures at the famous pizzerias Da Michele and Trianon. A feature at Via Napoli is its wood-burning ovens, cleverly named after the three active volcanoes in Italy – Mount Etna, Mount Vesuvius and Stromboli.

Via Napoli Ristorante e Pizzeria will be 14,000 sq.ft of traditional Florentine architecture, featuring 300-seats with outdoor dining. The restaurant will feature wood-burning ovens, genuine Italian dishes and vaulted ceilings.

Here is a first look at the menu for the new restaurant:

Appetizers: Sicilian eggplant with olives and raisins; salad of lettuce, fagiolini (string beans), fennel and tomatoes; arancini (fried saffron risotto balls) with meat ragù, mozzarella and pomodoro sauce; corn-crusted fried calamari; and minestrone with basil pesto. Or share a plate of arancini, mozzarella, calamari, portobella mushrooms, asparagus, zucchini and carciofi (artichokes).

Main course salads: Manzo (filet of beef) with greens, red onion, gorgonzola, apple and cucumber with a red wine-mustard vinaigrette; chopped salad with lemon chicken, greens, cantaloupe, cucumber, red pepper, green beans, onions, almonds and pasta crisps with honey-citrus vinaigrette; calamari with arugula, carrots and fennel with orange vinaigrette.

Pastas: candele (long, tube-shaped pasta) with sausage ragù; linguine with seafood; malfadineguanciale (unsmoked Italian bacon) and pomodoro sauce; lasagna verde. (ribbon pasta) with

Piatti alla Parmigiana: (dishes topped with Parmesan and mozzarella gratinée): veal, chicken and eggplant.

Wood-fired pizzas: made with caputo flour imported from Southern Italy, San Marzano tomatoes, handmade mozzarella and water from a local spring just like in Italy’s Campania region – 10-inch, 20-inch or 1/2 meter to share: a dozen choices, from a simple pizza Margherita with tomato, mozzarella and basil to carciofi with artichoke, potato, pecorino cheese, prosciutto and cantaloupe.

Sweets: tiramisù, zeppole di ricotta (ricotta cheese-fried dough, whipped cream and chocolate sauce); apple cake with almond sorbetti; gelatie; and vanilla gelato with almond cookies and amarena cherries.