Piccolo Buco in Naperville’s Block 59 officially opened Monday, bringing a unique version of Neapolitan-style pizza to the city.
Its inspiration is Chef Luca Issa’s restaurant in Rome, also named Piccolo Buco. Issa’s signature pizzas were brought to the U.S. with the help of Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurants CEO Tim McEnery.
It’s the second Piccolo Buco to open in the country, following the Oak Brook store that opened in 2022.
Naperville was chosen in part because the city also has a Cooper’s Hawk, one of nearly 70 in a dozen states launched by McEnery in Illinois in 2005.
The two businesses complement each other, McEnery said. Plus, he really liked the development at Block 59, located at Route 59 and Aurora Avenue, which is bringing a slew of new restaurants to the area, including First Watch, Shake Shack and The Cheesecake Factory, he said.
“We are delighted to see this restaurant concept come alive here,” Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli said at a Saturday ribbon-cutting. “I remember your story. You were opening the second store for Cooper’s Hawk — your other concept in Naperville — many years ago. I was there on opening night. Here I am today, on opening night.”
Issa and McEnery first met when McEnery was on a trip to Rome with his fiancee. The two were traveling to Germany but when his fiancee said she had never been to Rome, McEnery knew they had to stop in the city before heading back to the States.
“If we’re going on a trip for two days, she spends five days researching where we’re going to eat,” McEnery said. “And so she said, ‘I found this pizza place. It’s the number two pizza rated in Italy. We’re going to go there. It’s going be a long line and might not be your style of pizza, but you’re going go with me and you’re not going to complain.’”
That restaurant was the original Piccolo Buco, which translates to “small hole” in Italian.
When the pair found the restaurant, located just steps away from the Trevi Fountain, the wait was about an hour. McEnery knew he had no choice but to wait but remained skeptical as to how good the pizza could possibly be.
“As soon as we walked in the door and I saw the first pizza, I was like, ‘Holy s—. Like, there is no pizza like this that I’ve ever seen before,’” McEnery recalled. “And it’s a small place, so you’re talking to all the people next to you and you’re sharing notes around what to get, how you cut the pizza and all this stuff.”
McEnery, who ordered a mushroom and sausage pizza, loved it so much that he knew he had to bring the concept to the States.
He approached Issa with an offer, but the chef was used to being asked to open more shops. About once a month someone broaches the subject, he said, and every time he had the same answer: It is simply too hard to open another store outside of Rome.
“I used to answer like this to everybody and everybody was scared from my answer because when they start to ask me if I have the idea to open out of Rome, I always put on the table all the problems that we can find,” Issa said. “Tim was the first one to accept the challenge.”
Unlike others who previously approached him, Issa said McEnery really understood what it takes to launch a successful restaurant operation.
In addition to their careers, Issa and McEnery were similar in they were both exposed to the restaurant industry at an early age. McEnery’s first job was washing dishes at his grandparents’ golf course restaurant when he was 11. Issa, who was born in the apartment just above the Piccolo Buco, grew up helping his dad around the restaurant and learning the ins-and-outs of the business.
McEnery left Issa his business card, hoping he would at least look him up online. When he returned home to the States, McEnery opened his email to find a letter from Issa. He was in.
From sourcing local ingredients in Italy to getting the dough just right so it turns into the airy, puffy crust that makes it a Piccolo Buco pizza, recreating Issa’s signature pizza was no small feat.
“The way we scratch the pizza is different from what we saw in our life, from our grandma, for example, that use the piece of the roller to scratch,” Issa said. “We don’t scratch with the roller, but we scratch with the hands, so technically it is a lot more difficult.”
Another ingredient Issa was proud to bring from Italy was the recipe for his family’s chili oil.
“My family doesn’t have a lot of food traditions, but this chili oil was part of my family for forever,” Issa said. “My mom still lives in the same apartment, which is on the top of the Piccolo Buco, and every month, every two months, if you go enough in her house, you can find her cutting seasoning, the spicy chili.”
The chili oil was one of the first ingredients Issa knew he wanted to bring to the States, but getting that permission was a battle. Issa asked his grandfather, who refused to give him the recipe.
“I decided to ask my grandmother for the recipe and she say, why don’t you ask your grandfather? I said, because the grandfather already said no. She said, ‘OK, don’t worry. I will tell you,’” Issa said. “He died without knowing that my grandmother gave me the recipe.”
As for next steps, the pair plans to open more locations. Another Piccolo Buco is slated to open later this year in Tampa, Florida.
“We’re on the path of opening two restaurants this year, two restaurants next year, then we’ll get on the path of three, four,” McEnery said. “So like Cooper’s Hawk, yes, we’ve always been growing restaurants every year, but at the same time, we’re spending the equal amount of energy to make sure we’re staying innovative and to make sure that the quality is always there.”
cstein@chicagotribune.com
