Nittolo’s Pizza To Open In Lake Leelanau Late February

Chef Eric Nittolo announced this week that, together with his family, he’s opening the first of two restaurants, Nittolo’s Pizza (104 Main Street, Lake Leelanau) in the former Bella Fortuna location.

Nittolo, a Great Lakes Culinary Institute grad whose local career has led him to The Boathouse, Cambria Hotel and LochenHeath, says the restaurant will be a “pizza takeout powerhouse,” with some first-come, first-served seating, and a 125-seat patio open as the weather allows.

The restaurateur says he’s offering the peninsula wood fired pizzas “in the old-school style of Florence, Italy.” Nittolo, a third-generation Italian American, will use his late grandmother’s marinara recipe and source the meats from Olli Salumeria. Pizza toppings lean into authentic Italian — burrata, taleggio, sopressata, roasted marinated eggplant — and the simple menu will mix in non-traditional pies that Nittolo calls “flavor explosions.” (The Spanish: serrano ham, fig jam, Manchego, saffron honey and Marcona almond brittle.)

Nittolo’s Pizza will open in late February, and while part two of the culinary venture is yet to be announced, he tells the Leelanau Ticker that he hopes to open a kids room to accompany the pizzeria — with games and kid cocktails — by mid-March.

Nittolo is still finetuning his hours, but laughs, “We’ll be open when you have a craving for pizza…or all the days that end in ‘y.’”