Pizza Lab
When you’ve been perfecting dough for decades…. Why stop at bread? “Since we know dough from 33 years being in the bread business, it was easiest for us to transition into making pizza and finding people who know how to make it the right way. There are a lot of people who can make pizza and make bread, but there's a lot of people who have this artistry in their fingers, in their hands. They know how to touch the dough. They know how to press it perfectly. And that’s really special.” And they’re conducting one tasty experiment at The Pizza Lab.
Tucked away in a space directly next to Cape Cod Gateway Airport in Hyannis, The Pizza Lab is the fun, funky sister restaurant to world renowned bakery and cafe Pan D’Avignon. “When you arrive here an industrial park by an airport, it's a little disarming. But then when you come you see this beautiful restaurant, kind of the smaller nose and the bigger body of this wonderful laboratory. That's why we call The Pizza Lab “the lab”, because good things happen here on a daily basis, and they come organically. So we centralized here, and we have this beautiful restaurant, the bigger bakery behind it, and now a roastery and a pizzeria.” That’s Mario Mariani, longtime Pan D’Avignon CEO, who along with his team created a lively space, buzzing with activity whether you sit at their beautiful bar, in the dining room or right at the stone hearth, where they are perfecting pizza all day long. “It's a 36 hour fermentation process. We use an ancient grain and 00 Italian flour and pure ingredients. It's risen slowly. It's got to be malleable. It’s got to be tasty. There's got to be a flavor in the dough with a touch of salt. And then that's a baked in the il forno which creates this rapid 90 second, frying almost of the dough, and a little pass by the wood inside the oven to give it a nice charcoal flavor, presenting typical Neapolitan pizza.”
The pizzas at Pizza Lab range from classic to creative with options like the simple but sensational Margherita topped with a San Marzano Tomato Sauce, Grande Mozzarella, and fresh basil and for a meat lovers pizza by way of Italy, order the Calabria topped with spicy Calabrian salami, prosciutto cotto, Italian sausage and smoked bacon. “The spiciness of the prosciutto Cotto and the Calabrian salami and a little smoke flavor from the bacon just gives you almost a well rounded meal, if you will. People like meat, so we can get them something that they can enjoy too.” The Positano pie brings the flavor of an old school passed appetizer to a pizza. “If you ever had an hors d'oeuvre passed around some cater waiter, it's always what bacon wrapped around a scallop. So it's really nice combination flavors that people are familiar with. We use fresh local scallops… caramelized onion, which just gives this smooth flavor to it on a white pizza, no marinara. We know that that smoky flavor with the smoked house smoked bacon and the caramelized onions made again, that trilogy made a beautiful pie.”
And for a pizza you will not find anywhere else, order the Amalfi- topped with a pistachio base with stracciatella and crispy prosciutto. “When you're biting into it, you get the crunchiness of that, the creaminess of the pistachio and the stracciatella and then this beautiful, smoky prosciutto flavor with that pleasant crunch. It's so delicious.”
In addition to pizza, The Pizza Lab has a section of their menu called ‘Etc’, which features a line up of appetizers and entrees to accompany their pies. Like these Woodfired Chicken Wings, roasted for that ultimate crunch and a meatball that both Italians and Italian-Americans alike will want to try. “It's a big target on our back, because, you know, everyone has the best meatballs. So we combine not bread crumbs as a filler, but just as a connection with the meat, veal and beef. They're fried after they're made, and then they're also finished in the il forno with marinara sauce a little bit of Parmesan cheese. Super tasty, fresh made daily. Our recipe. Try them. Your Nono could make better ones than ours, but I think we make it pretty darn good meatball.”
Other Italian classics include comforting lasagna with house made pasta, and a blend of beef and veal layered with San Marzano tomato sauce, mozzarella and Bechamel. Or their perfectly prepared eggplant parmigiana. “They're thinly sliced pieces of eggplant that have been fried and in between are layers of Parmesan cheese, tomato sauce and Bechamel. The important thing is that you don't need a knife and fork. It should be so tender the way we prepare it, that you just take it with a fork and enjoy it.”
Since they’re world renowned for their bakery, a dessert is an absolute must, whether you opt for their classic take on tiramisu made with espresso beans roasted right on site. Or get the table a plate of their adorable cannoli. “We decided when we open here, we're going to have to have a classic cannoli, which is this gorgeous fried shell, and we fill it with the most delicious creation of a sweet ricotta and just a little powdered sugar and classic that you can bite will definitely disappear in the mouth.”
And whether it’s parms or pizza, not only will everything taste good, but it will make you feel good too, when you dine at The Pizza Lab. “Pizza is not supposed to just fill you up and bloat you. It's a part of a meal. You can have it every day, and a good pizza must just disappear, crunch and flavor and bye, bye. Okay, we're not in Naples Italy, but we do our best to give you the best thing outside of the Naples.”
