Behind every “overnight sensation” is a couple like Adam and Tiffany DiLauro, who lie awake at night obsessing over the smallest of details. Since opening in 2021, Pizzeria DiLauro in Bainbridge has grown from a friendly neighborhood pizza shop to a multi-concept destination that has people lining up for a taste of whatever the DiLauros are selling.
“I live, eat, breathe and sleep our product,” says Adam. “Looking at pictures and processes of what we were doing when we first opened, we’ve come miles and miles.”
True to his word, the pizza that Adam and his team are making today is somehow better than it was three years ago when I first tried it. The round pies look like classic New York-style pizzas, but they eat like Neapolitan-style pies. They are thin, crisp, foldable and sparsely topped, but they have almost no chew to them. Instead they are light, tender and a joy to eat. Unlike most American pies, they are judiciously topped with cheese – more mottled than entombed.
DiLauro always made amazing Sicilian-style pies, rectangular-cut pan pizzas with dark and crispy edges and a light, airy crumb. They’ve since added large, square Grandma pies, a low-rise version of the Sicilian that also flips the conventional cheese-sauce arrangement.
But don’t take my word for the pizza quality; stop by on any given weekend and see for yourself. The meticulous crew, working in an open kitchen, flies through 250 to 300 doughs on a typical Friday or Saturday night. Those doughs were started three or four days prior and are hand-tossed to order. Customers know that wait times for pies can climb to two hours, but callers are provided with dead accurate pickup times. Most families grab and go, but some scramble for a table in the small dining room.
Not long after they opened, the DiLauros busted into an adjacent space that had been home to Tiffany’s day spa. Soon, The Lounge was unveiled, a handsome 28-seat saloon where folks (21 and over) can knock back an Old Fashioned or Negroni while they wait for their pies. Many guests treat the Lounge as a full-service dining room, opting to order food and drink for onsite enjoyment. The wise ones come on Tuesdays, the only night that DiLauro offers chicken wings.
I’ve eaten my weight in wings and I am telling you that these are special. In a process with ties to Greenhouse Tavern, jumbo wings undergo a three-day prep that includes a 24-hour dry cure, long bath in buttermilk, dredging in rice flour and another day to dry. After a hot bath in the deep fryer, the wings are tossed in sauce. The method results in a crust that stays crispy for hours, but also meat that is fall-apart tender, juicy and flavorful.
“Chicken wings are my favorite food in the world and I refuse to just drop raw wings in a fryer,” says Adam. “We can’t do this five days a week.”
Because folks like Adam and Tiffany are never content with the status quo, the couple didn’t hesitate to acquire the space on the other side of the pizzeria when it too became available. The location was ideal for a new concept they were developing because it could share the kitchen and staff of the pizzeria while also taking advantage of the baked-in crowds. After weeks of testing, the DiLauros unveiled Retro Burger in November, a quick-serve burger and fries restaurant. No surprise, they strived for excellence and succeeded.
“We tasted beef from all over the country and as soon as we tasted this beef, we said stop the samples, we found our beef,” Adam says of Bonner Farms in Garrettsville. “The beef lends itself so well to being smashed and cooked to well-done while staying juicy. It was a no-brainer.”
Simplicity and technique are the watchwords here, with lacey, crisp-edged patties capped with American cheese and loaded into soft potato rolls with a choice of shredded iceberg, tomato, pickles, raw onion and special sauce. Singles, doubles and triples are available. All-beef hot dogs from Cleveland’s Five Star Meats are also on the menu, as are crisp, thin fries, soft-serve custard and milkshakes.
Naturally, the DiLauros are thinking three steps ahead.
“I always said that I would never open another pizzeria because dough is such a hard thing to manage,” Adam explains. “With Retro, we wanted to create something that was simple and duplicatable. We’re really excited about this concept. This is something we can pop up five or six of them.”
Pizzeria DiLauro
Retro Burger
17800 Chillicothe Rd., Chagrin Falls
Subscribe to Cleveland Scene newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
