Roman-inspired Montesacro Pinseria opened in Brooklyn in 2019, part of a growing mini-chain originating in San Francisco. In December, I ended up eating a vegetarian dinner there with two friends.

When the first Montesacro opened in San Francisco in 2015, the restaurant became the first American restaurant offering Pinsa, a type of Roman flatbread that most Americans would recognize simply as a pizza. The hand-formed pizza is allegedly an ancient style dating back to the Roman era. However, historian Katie Parla says there isn’t much evidence to support this claim. According to Parla, the first Pinsa was invented in 2001 by Corrado Di Marco near the Vatican. What makes this pizza special is the combination of wheat, rice, and soy flour, creating a lighter crust.

Montesacro’s owner, Gianluca Legrottaglie, began his career in New York where he had worked at Il Buco and Aurora in Brooklyn before shifting to the west coast.

When Brooklyn’s Montesacro location opened, Legrottaglie brought on some local help adding Aurora’s executive chef Riccardo Buitoni to the team. Buitoni added the a menu of Roman dishes. Buitoni was born in Piedmont, and opened several Italian restaurants across New York City, including Aurora with locations in Williamsburg and SoHo, and Emporio in Manhattan.

When Montesacro moved into 432 Union Avenue, it was taking over a space that had a storied and tragic legacy. The spot had been home to the famed DuMont, and a burger that changed the Brooklyn burger world. In 2005, the Times called DuMont a “refuge for young daters”. A year later, a Bedford Avenue location opened, DuMont Burger. The restaurant was known its take on new American cuisine, like mac and cheese, and for its $10.50 burger. Their burger helped popularize the brioche bun and upscale accouterments. Despite the popularity, financial problems plagued owner Colin Devlin, who committed suicide. The Union Avenue location was soon after in 2014. DuMont Burger on Bedford still operates, but is a separate entity now.

Montesacro’s has done little to alter the interior layout capitalizing on the large, enclosed backyard. The kitchen is more open to the main bar than it had been, and overall the industrial chic interior has been refined and warmed, with a more Italian-ish sense about it. Still, even with the cosmetic changes, the interior remains recognizable, an uncanny alternate universe.

The renovation of the garden space did little to divide up the dining area, and if anything, squeezed more tables into it. The open dining room is not an intimate experience, but that’s not a bad thing. There’s an exciting energy to eating among a crowd, like a Roman piazza, as though we’re participating in one big party.

And something feels significant about a Roman pizzeria – a pinseria – inhabiting the space of a restaurant that helped transform Brooklyn’s restaurant scene. Pizza is serious business in the city, and the last two decades have upended the usual way of things. The Neapolitan style ushered in by Roberta’s and Motorino and Una Pizza Napoletana changed the perception of pizza, and then the slice joint strikes back with L’industrie, Scarr’s, Paulie Gee’s, plus the rise of the Detroit-style square with Emmy’s, Prince Street, among others. Montesacro’s Roman Pinsa was something different, but the field was crowded.

Seven years later, it’s hard to know whether Montesacro helped Roman-style cuisine become trendy, or simply was lucky enough to ride in on the wave of newness. Either way, Roman cuisine remains on point, and there’s no doubt Montesacro is embracing Roman style. And that’s what stands out here– the Roman dishes, the street food, the Pinsa.

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My wife had been looking to eat here for a while. A few years back she had gotten close to booking the restaurant for a corporate event, but ultimately the client’s project went in a different direction. But her interest was piqued – and so it was at the top of my mind when I was out with friends to celebrate the holidays.

We had drinks on the corner at H&H Reserve, and debated where to eat. One of us, not to mention names, has been a vegetarian for the last few decades, so that always informs our meal choices, which is why we often end up at places serving pizza, like Leo.

Let’s check out Montesacro, I suggested, since it was a low effort destination. Sure enough, we had a table right away.

We skipped the cocktails since we were already a drink or two in, but we did order wine.

I suggested we order the Fried Zucca, a delicata squash sliced in rings and topped with shaved cheese. The cheese was an aged ricotta which brought a nice saltiness to it. The dish was slightly spicy with a touch of sweetness from the honey. I cook a lot of delicata squash at home, but what I appreciated about this dish was that it was slightly more refined, a step up from what I make myself.

The artichokes were a great starter for our vegetarian meal, and what I appreciated about this was that a week earlier I had a similar artichoke dish around the corner of at St. Anselm. The pickled lemon on this dish really helped brighten up the flavors, and I think overall was a better preparation.

We also ordered the suppli al telefono, a Roman-style arancini. These rice ball croquettes were a highlight with a savory, umami rich flavor and stretchy cheese in the middle. They are a classic Roman street food, and definitely worth getting as part of a meal.

These antipasti dishes weren’t terribly complicated, but were well executed. I am of course curious about some of the other meaty starters, but no doubt I’ll be back with my wife eventually.

For our primi, we ordered the agnolotti. These mushroom ravioli were a bit bland when it came to mushroom flavor, and the pasta itself thicker and tougher, meaning the delicate flavor was further lost. Overall, I’d skip the pasta course here. There are plenty of places that do fresh pasta well or better, and this is after all, a pizza restaurant.

And the pizzas – pinsa – were worth every bite. We ordered two for the three of us. The Pinsa Ottaviano 24, a special pie topped with roasted heirloom cherry tomatoes, sauce, and stracciatella was absolutely phenomenal, especially considering we were eating fresh tomatoes in the middle of December. The tomatoes were little sweet bombs contrasting the creamy cheese.

What did make the pinsa particularly good though was the dough. It’s thicker than you might expect, but also extremely light. The texture is the result of the specialized flour mixture.

The second pizza was ordered was the Portonaccio topped with tomato, mozzarella, eggplant, and aged ricotta. This one was also good, with the savory eggplant adding texture, though my preference was for the Ottaviano.

Montesacro’s Pinsa provides a unique pizza experience in a city filled with many varieties. But it’s a celebration of Roman cuisine that sets it apart, though I would skip the pasta.

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