Mother Pizzeria From the Giusto Team Now Open in Newport
Sourdough pizza, snacks and salads, cured meats, local cheeses and preserved fish round out the menu.
Mother Pizzeria. Photo by Corey Favino.
Mother Pizzeria is ready to unleash the yeast on Newport. The restaurant is dishing out sourdough pizza to the seaside community, from the same owner of the award-winning Italian restaurant Giusto. Mother Pizzeria is owned by chef Kevin O’Donnell, who is known for coastal and regional Italian at his first restaurant, which opened in 2020 and earned a Best of Rhode Island “Editors’ Pick: award for “Italian” from Rhode Island Monthly magazine.
Mother Pizzeria is named for the starter, or “mother,” used in sourdough baking. The restaurant is located at the Shops at Long Wharf, and it’s a partnership between O’Donnell and two Giusto alums, executive chef Kyle Stamps and general manager Lauren Schaefer. Guests get an inside look in the semi-open kitchen where the Marra Forni Neapolitan-style pizza oven fires the pizzas, surrounded by an Italian twelve-seat marble bar. There are floor-to-ceiling windows that afford a waterfront view in the space that is designed by RODE Architects. Dark green velvet banquettes and custom wood tabletops fill the sixty-five-seat dining room, plus there’s a waterfront patio.
The pizza spot has two dining options, a quick-service to-go counter (coming soon!) and a sit-down dining room. The sit-down experience menu includes a selection of Snacks & Salads, which are designed for sharing. Some of those dishes include garlic knots cacio e pepe, chop chop salad with salame, pecorino fresco, pickled vegetables and creamy Italian dressing; and octopus salad with gochujang, fermented fennel, cucumber and fingerling potatoes. Guests can also build-their-own charcuterie by choosing from a selection of cured meats, local cheeses and domestic and preserved fish. The fish are preserved in-house by chefs who use methods such as brining, pickling, smoking and confit, including mussels that are poached and marinated in a green curry sauce with cilantro, and local tuna belly that is cooked confit in olive oil and served with an eggplant caponata seasoned with calamansi vinegar and Sicilian sun dried tomato paste.
Snacks from Mother Pizzeria. Photo by Corey Favino.
Of course, the focus is on the pizza for which the restaurant is named. The chefs create the sourdough pizza using naturally fermented dough and local stone ground flour. Varieties include margherita with mozzarella, Bianco di Napoli tomatoes and basil; the Notorious F.I.G. includes black mission fig, ricotta, prosciutto, arugula and aged balsamic; The Super Tuscan involves soppressata, mozzarella, tomato and broccoli rabe; the Nightshade comes with with heirloom cherry tomato, pesto trapanese and smoked mozzarella; Calabrian Luau is all decked out with n’duja, pineapple, red onion, roasted pepper and caciocavallo; and then there’s the RI Party Pie with tomato, estratto di pomodoro, Sicilian oregano and chili flakes.
For dessert, there are housemade gelatos available by the scoop with toppings including gianduja-hazelnut crunch, fennel-citrus honey drizzle, amaretti cookies, chocolate magic shell and more.
Mother Pizzeria, 49 Long Wharf Mall, Newport, motherpizzeria.com
The restaurant is open nightly for dinner from 4:30-10 p.m. with the bar closing at 11 p.m. Lunch service to come in the near future.
