Casa Stellina pizzeria opens in Farmingdale

Not content to make his mark on the North Shore, Fabrizio Facchini is heading south. The chef and his partners (his wife, Samira, along with Thomas and Adriana Milana) already own Oyster Bay’s Stellina Ristorante as well The Wine Line around the corner and two Stellina bakery-cafés, one in Oyster Bay, the other in Syosset. Now they are poised to Stellininze Farmingdale.

Casa Stellina’s pizzeria launched quietly last month on Main Street. (Quietly, but fearlessly: It’s next door to Vespa, across the street from Vico and up the block from Daler’s.) Next month, the adjacent space will open as a restaurant-lounge serving a menu similar to the one at Stellina Ristorante, one of Long Island’s best and most authentic Italian restaurants.

For now, Facchini has his hands full with the pizzeria. His goal is an Italian-meets-Italian American hybrid. “We want to produce a 90% Italian product,” he said “but keep that 10% that is a good, New York-style pizzeria.”

An Italian native with roots in Umbria and Calabria, he respects Italian American cooking. “When Italians immigrated to America, they did not have access to the ingredients they had in Italy, and they developed new dishes, new ways of cooking,” he explained. “We are using ingredients that the immigrants couldn’t get.”

While Casa Stellina isn’t the only LI spot using Italian tomatoes or extra-virgin olive oil, there aren’t many that are importing fior di latte (cow’s milk) mozzarella for all the pies. Facchini uses a blend of two cheeses from Latteria Sorrentina, a 140-year-old dairy near Naples. The most critical import is the flour. Facchini collaborated with Mimmo Tolomeo, a brand ambassador for Caputo, Italy’s most famous mill, to create a dough using Nuvola Super, a flour suited to high hydration and long fermentation.

The four types of pizza at Casa Stellina all use the same dough, although it’s stretched differently for the Roman-style “pizze alla pala,” the puffy, rectangular, large-format pies sold individually or by the square; individual Neapolitan pies; round 18-inch “New York” pies; and the schiacciata, a “naked” pan pizza which is split and filled with savories such as Calabrian sopressata, cured Italian tuna, meatballs, chicken cutlets or roast beef. Non-pizza offerings look to the Old Country with dishes such as fried artichokes, trofie al pesto Genovese, or strozzapreti al fumè. (“Fumè,” or “smoked sauce” is made with smoked pancetta and smoked mozzarella and, Facchini said, is the progenitor of vodka sauce.)

Casa Stellina also makes takeout “dinner bundles,” family-style meals that include a main (such as chicken Parm, sausage and peppers, pappardelle ragu) plus salad (Caprese, arugula or Caesar) and a side (potatoes or vegetables). Bundles serve four and are $89 to $99 depending on main. 

The décor at this counter-serve spot is also a blend, in this case of chic restaurant and casual pizzeria: lots of wood and brick along with one wall that is covered with artfully arranged pizza peels. All these earth tones serve to throw into relief the Ferrari-red, state-of-the-art Italforni two-tiered oven (imported from Italy) that is clearly visible behind the counter.

Casa Stellina, 302 Main St., Farmingdale, 516-943-9111, casastellinany.com. Open Sunday and Tuesday to Wednesday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Thursday to Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Closed Monday.