Fiocha Pizza opens in Mattituck

There’s been a pizza-shaped hole in the North Fork since Pizza Rita closed in 2023 after four years in Mattituck (and a spot on Newsday's Best Pizza list). But that hole was filled on Feb. 10 when Nabeel Massoud opened Fiocha Pizza. Massoud’s pies are a bit crisper and sparer than the ones Jeff Marrone made at Pizza Rita, but they are of comparable quality, issuing from the same type of wood-burning oven.

For his Margherita, Massoud cuts fresh mozzarella into small pieces (using a French fry press!) so the cheese veils the pie as opposed to making blobs. Even simpler, the Marinara is a symphony of tomato, garlic and oregano that allows full appreciation of his crust, not as soft and pillowy as a classic pizza Napoletana but full of wheaty character. There are two other red pies, the El Diablo (with pepperoni, jalapeños and hot honey) and four white pies: The Bianca features mozzarella and ricotta, add cherry tomatoes and you’ve got the Rosa Bianca. The Funghi is topped with shiitake and oyster mushrooms, lemon ricotta, pecorino and Parmesan and a drizzle of truffle oil; the arugula, with mozzarella, arugula and Parmesan.

Massoud is a well known name on the North Fork: In 1983, Ursula and Charles Massoud founded Paumanok Vineyards in Aquebogue. Nabeel, the youngest of their three sons, started working on the bottling line when he was in middle school. Until he launched Fiocha, he was the vineyard manager.

Nabeel start making pizza in his home kitchen about 10 years ago, soon realizing that he "needed to back up a bit," he said. "Pizza begins with bread and I realized that I didn’t really understand dough." He fell into the proverbial bread rabbit hole along with cookbooks, sourdough starters, Dutch ovens, scales, baskets and lots of flour.

In 2017, Macari Vineyards in Mattituck introduced the Avelino Pizza Truck, a state-of-the-art wood-fired pizzeria housed inside a former shipping container. "We were doing cheese plates at our vineyard and I was so jealous," Massoud recalled.

He still remembers that day in 2021 when everything changed for him. "I was on top of the harvester — we were having an amazing harvest — and I had the idea that we should go over to Macari and get some pizza. A friend of mine called over there and then said to me, ‘No more pizza. The truck is for sale.’"

The family bought the truck and Massoud renamed it Fiocha after his children, Fiona, now 6, and Charles, 9. In 2023, he set up shop at Palmer Vineyards, the Riverhead winery that Paumanok had bought five years earlier. And it was a hit. But prepping in his home kitchen was getting out of hand — "There was always flour everywhere" — and, urged on by his wife, he began to look for a commercial space. That’s when he came upon the recently closed Pizza Rita. The price was right. And, now that he was renting a proper pizzeria, he decided to shift away from a seasonal truck and in the direction of a year-round restaurant.

Or, that was the plan. Massoud was drawn to the pizzeria’s oven, a hulking Stefano Ferarra Forni that had been imported from Naples and that Rita’s Marrone had plastered with broken crockery. It turned out the oven was not in good shape and Massoud spent months going back and forth over whether it could be repaired or needed to be replaced. In the end, he decided to replace it, which necessitated an even longer wait. The front window of the pizzeria needed to be removed for the oven to be forklifted into place. "That was a real nail biter," he said. "There was like an inch clearance above and below."

Massoud said he really wasn’t ready to open, but after two years of paying rent, "I needed to put some money back into my bank account."

Fiocha’s opening menu consists of eight pizzas ($18 to $24) and two salads ($13 to $15). Beer and wine will be added soon and he also has the capacity to grill, fry and bake.

While he’d done no advertising or marketing, people had been driving by the sign for two years and, that first weekend, he was mobbed. "People have been so great, they are so excited to be eating this pizza. And I’m excited too — but also exhausted and terrified, in equal parts."

Fiocha Pizza, 55 Middle Rd., Mattituck, 631-298-7371, Instagram: @fiochapizza. Open Thursday noon to 8 a.m., Friday and Saturday noon to 9 p.m., Sunday and Monday noon to 8 p.m., closed Tuesday and Wednesday.