After Launching the popular and well-received One Red Door and burger joint Flip Side, Shawn Monday knew pizza was the next item on his to-do list of restaurants. This fall he opened 3 Palms Pizzeria, an Old World Neapolitan pizzeria at Hudson's First & Main.
"Who doesn't like pizza? It's simple — it's bread, cheese and sauce. It's the greatest thing ever," says Monday. "My dad's Italian. We didn't cook together much, but we always ate at a lot of pizzerias."
Honoring his Italian roots, Monday uses salt and pepper, fresh buffalo mozzarella and certified Italian tomatoes in 3 Palms' Margherita Pizza ($12). The dough is also made in-house with real, ground Italian flour.
"There really is no secret recipe. It's about using the best ingredients possible," says Monday. "That's what Italian cooking is — using proper technique and keeping it simple."
A high-temperature oven imported from Italy produces the pizza's very thin, crisp and chewy crust. It also inspired the restaurant's name. Master craftsmen measure three times the width of their palm to build each oven's dome to the proper height.
"It showed the old-school tradition of how they make the oven," says Monday. "I knew if we were going to do a pizzeria, we needed to go to the source — Naples, Italy."
MORE INFO 3palmspizza.com
