A pie comes out of the oven at Pollara. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
Pollara owner Jon Smulewitz. (Photo by Brian Donohue)
The Asbury Park Press last week featured the restaurant’s opening, saying owner Jon Smulewitz “is channeling years of culinary training, travel inspiration, and experience into a menu of pizzas topped with housemade charcuterie and ricotta, authentic Italian antipasti, greens and sandwiches”.
Smulewitz, the paper reports, “spent years building restaurants in California — Italian restaurant Dopo and wine and salumi bar Adesso, which received a James Beard Foundation Award nomination for Best New Restaurant in 2010, in Oakland and the original Pollara Pizzeria in Berkeley — before returning to build another that represents them all.”
Indeed, when he closed Pollara Pizza in Berkeley California, Eater.com reported that foodies there were seriously lamenting their loss.
Sorry, not sorry.
The Friday night shuffle at Pollara. (Photo by Brian Donohue)
This is a Jersey pizza homecoming story, too. Smulewitz is a New Brunswick native. He and his wife Kayta and kids recently moved to Red Bank.
We’ll let the quotes from the app.com story do the talking.
Because when we stopped in Friday, they seemed too busy for us to butt in with our questions. 
And we were eager to get home as fast as possible to eat the rossa pie, pancetta pie and sausage escarole pies (see photo above) we had bought.
We’ll just say they lived up to the hype.
redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331.
