With less than two weeks before he opens his first brick-and-mortar location of St. Vito Focacceria at 605 Mansion St. in the Gulch, chef Michael Hanna is a busy man. “We’re in the rush to finish,” he says in a recent interview. “It’s really hectic around here, and every subcontractor is busy in the space. We’re only a 1,600-square-foot restaurant, so everybody is on top of each other!”
But after years of operating his wildly popular sfincione pizza and Sicilian street food concept as a pop-up around town, he’s finally ready to set down roots. Good Lord (and pending permits) willing, Hanna plans to open for business by May 24, and it sounds like he’s expecting his new restaurant space to be a real boon to his business.
“Everything is new in the kitchen," he says. "I’ll finally have a real pizza oven instead of the convection oven and home electric oven that I’ve been using."
Hanna has purchased a state-of-the-art triple-deck electric oven from Pizza Master. Priced about the same level as a base model Tesla Model Y, this powerhouse of an oven can cook at temps between 200 and 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and maintain different temperatures between the ceiling and the floor of the oven. Hanna has ordered a model with steam on the bottom deck, and he hopes to use that to experiment with animated pastries and bake bread made with his special unsifted Sardinian durum flour, selling loaves to the neighborhood and perhaps other restaurants.
He is familiar with the Pizza Master after using one at Pizza City Fest in Chicago. “We put out 750 slices in two-and-a-half hours,” Hanna recalls excitedly. “It’s an exceptional piece of equipment.” He’s also fired up about his new giant mixer, which is as tall as he is and will hold multiple 50-pound bags of flour. Considering one of his pies uses about 800 grams of flour, that should allow for a massive increase in scale over the 30 portion batches he’s been working with over the past three years.
Hanna has also acquired three new proofers, the first time he has had access to that essential piece of equipment. His cold-fermented dough can take two or three days to develop the flavors and textures that he demands for his sfincione-style pizza and as bread to use with focaccia sandwiches that he plans to include on the new menu at St. Vito.
That new menu is still under development, but Hanna is ready to make a few promises as a preview. “We’ll always have the Classic [fontina and mozzarella cheese, milled tomato sauce, seasoned bread crumbs, oregano], and the Potato [taleggio and fontina cheeses, roasted potatoes, potato cream sauce, pepper blend] will consistently be on the menu, and we’ll probably always keep pepperoni in house. We also want to have rotating seasonal pizzas. I’m really excited about our first specialty pizza that my sous chef came up with. It’s a play on creamed spinach with creamed Harpeth Moon Farm greens, grilled chicory and escarole, lemon juice and raw garlic topped with a bechamel and spinach soubise with caramelized onions.”
Hanna plans to always include a couple of small plates (“something seafood or veg-driven,” he promises), plus a cheese course courtesy of The Bloomy Rind. He’s also building protein sets designed for one or two diners, like the lightly grilled 28-day-aged swordfish loins he served at a recent dinner at Yolan. These larger plates will come with two sides, probably a vegetable and a starch. Slices will be available at dinner as a potential add-on to the protein set. “I want people to order everything and taste everything,” Hanna shares.
Other ideas on the drawing board include a comforting Sunday lasagna and pastry boxes for carryout if you need a little bomboloni or cornetti in your life. Hanna has coaxed talented former Catbird Seat pastry chef Mayme Gretsch out of retirement to help out part-time with the dessert program.
St. Vito will be open for lunch with a shorter menu of whole pies, slices, focaccia sandwiches and a few salads. Even though the menu will be longer, Hanna hopes to keep service quick at dinner, estimating about a half-hour for lunch and no more than 90 minutes to enjoy the evening meal. He plans to set aside about half of the restaurant's 40 seats for reservations via Tock, with the remainder available for walk-ins. He will take reservations for the two six-tops and for spaces in the 13 seats along the chef’s counter, and that should be quite the show to see.
So your wait is almost over, Nashville. While May 24 is still the guess, follow St. Vito on social media or at their website for further updates as they check off the inspection punch list.
