Via Cuma and Dough & Co. pizzerias plan expansions
A white pizza with potatoes and porchetta at Via Cuma in Valley Stream. Credit: Newsday/Erica Marcus
Most of Long Island’s top pizzerias are single-location ventures, but this winter already seems to be the season of pizza expansion with two heavy hitters planning new shops:
Via Cuma
Chef-owner Luca Schiano Di Cola’s ode to his native Naples opened in a tiny Valley Stream storefront in 2024 and has just taken the keys to what was, until earlier this week, Naples Street Food in Oceanside. With 38 seats, Oceanside has almost twice the capacity as Valley Stream and, unlike the BYOB original, it will have a full bar. Schiano Di Cola hopes to open Via Cuma II in March.
Naples Street Food’s owner, Gianluca Chiarolanza (also Italian by birth) was one of Long Island’s artisanal pizza pioneers, opening the first Naples Street food in Franklin Square in 2016. Oceanside debuted in 2019 and, by 2021, the Franklin Square pizzeria had been taken over by Gigi Sacchetti, who initially renamed it Chef Gigi’s Place and then, in 2024, Farina 00. (Is it a full-time job to keep all of this straight? It is — and I have that job!)
Chiarolanza has no plans to open another Long Island pizzeria, but he is a partner in a pizza truck in Florida so he’ll still be slinging pies.
Dough & Co.
Danny Rocca, chef-owner of Dough & Co. Pizza in Huntington, with a Prince Street Sicilian pie with pepperoni. Credit: Linda Rosier
In Oyster Bay, Umberto’s is moving into much larger quarters in the old Jericho home of Frank’s Steaks. The Main Street store won’t be empty for long because Dough & Co. of Huntington (est. 2022), an elevated slice shop with a standout gluten-free Sicilian, will be opening a Nassau County beachhead. March 1 is the projected opening date.
