Porta Via has been a neighborhood favorite for west-siders for almost a decade. It’s also where you’ll find bona fide, certified pizza. Unique among local pie joints, Porta Via Ristorante e Bar holds the distinction of being the only true Neapolitan pizza in town—the only in the state, in fact. That’s because they are VPN-certified, which stands for Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, the governing body based out of Naples, Italy that ensures that the traditional ingredients and techniques are used in the production of authentic Neapolitan pies.
When Mehrdad Alviri opened Porta Via on White Bridge Rd. in 2009, he knew that authenticity would be the hook that he would hang his hat on when it came to pizza. While there are other Neapolitan-style pizzas in town, characterized by thin crust pizzas cooked rapidly in an infernally hot wood-fired oven, Porta Via is the only one that can claim this official distinction. “We started working on our certification on day 1,” recalls Alviri. “We sent our chef to Italy to train, and now Giovanni Giosa is officially a certified master pizzaiolo.” Not only can chef Giosa train new pizzaiolos in the art and craft of pizza making, but Porta Via was awarded with official VPN status, the 350th restaurant in the entire world to earn this certification.