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With their new restaurant Tiella, co-owners Mario Coppola and Giuseppe Castellano (the latter of Cambridge's Gran Gusto) are introducing New York to Neapolitan cuisine that doesn't involve pizza. Named for traditional cast-iron pans, tiellas, which are deployed for an appetizer section of pizza-esque creations topped with combos like stracciatella and truffle, and foie gras and prosciutto. They're baked in the restaurant's 800-degree wood-burning oven, which has the curious honor of being the smallest restaurant brick oven approved by New York state. Also oven-based are the entrées, riffs on classic Neapolitan flavors like like branzino over grilled eggplant, potato-crusted orata, and an herbaceous whole roasted chicken. The mostly housemade pastas skew towards the unexpected: think lobster risotto with pink grapefruit, or whole-wheat spaghetti with radicchio, artichokes, and speck.
— Helen Rosner