The Vitale family has been serving Italian food and pizzas around Muscatine for a number of years. Remo Vitale opened his original restaurant - Salvatore's - in downtown Muscatine in 1984 along with his son Claudio. Claudio's brother Salvatore - mainly known as Sam - was working at his uncle's pizza place in Aledo, IL before Sam came to Muscatine to open his own spot - Francesca Vitale's (named after Sam's wife) - in 1996, just down the street from his family's Italian restaurant. Late last year, an opportunity for Sam and Francesca came up where they could help a friend start a restaurant in their downtown Muscatine location (now known as DaBeet's Bistro - look for an upcoming Road Tips piece on DaBeet's), while the couple moved up the hill to a new restaurant along Park Ave. (see map) On a recent evening trip to Muscatine, we decided to stop in and visit Sam and Francesca's new place, Sal Vitale's Pizzeria.
My wife and I are fond of all the Vitale family places - especially their pizzas. We frequent Antonella's in downtown Davenport, run by Antonia "Toni" Vitale-Sgro and her husband, Giovan ("John"). We like the pizzas at Salvatore's and we liked the pizza at Francesca Vitale's. All the pizzas between the family members are similar, but not exactly the same. We sort of knew what we were getting into going to Sal Vitale's.
I don't know what was housed in the building before Sam and Francesca Vitale moved in last year, but Sal Vitale's was a nice little place with a parking lot full of cars out front. The dining area wasn't all that big and the windows into the open kitchen showed the activity going on back there. A large Blodgett gas oven - one that Sam Vitale told us he bought used from The Airliner in Iowa City - was the prominent feature in the kitchen. I asked Sam how old the oven was and he said that it was new in 1996. He couldn't even fathom a guess as to how many pizzas had been cooked in the oven over the years.
Our server for the evening was a nice young lady by the name of Makayla. She dropped off some menus at the table we were seated at, and my wife ordered a house cabernet while I ordered a cold beer to start off. In addition to pizza at Sal Vitale's, they feature traditional pasta dishes, as well as entrees including chicken marsala and chicken parmesan. They also have hot panini sandwiches on the menu, as well.
My wife started out getting a house salad with the wicked creamy garlic dressing the Vitale family is famous for. I always say that I have to have a bite of the salad when she orders it so I'll be able to be around her the rest of the evening. There was a good sized pile of lettuce in the bowl with a liberal amount of the garlic dressing. Chopped tomatoes were sprinkled on the top. My wife thought it was a good salad.
Of course, we ordered a pizza and got our usual Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom. The crust on the pizza was similar to what we'd had at Francesca Vitale's - as well as at Antonella's and Salvatore's - sort of a thicker crust than thin and it had some crispiness on the bottom. The toppings were generous along with a copious amount of cheese that was caramelized across the top of the pizza. The taste was wonderful, but we didn't expect anything less from a pizza made by a Vitale family member.
Every once in awhile we like to make the trip to Muscatine to get some pizza. Now that Sam Vitale has relocated up the hill from downtown Muscatine and opened Sal Vitale's Pizzeria, it's one more place that we'll go to for pizza in the city. We liked the pizza, the service was friendly, and Sam Vitale continues to be one of the nicer guys we've run across in our various restaurant visits. Whatever dynamics are going on within the Vitale family in terms of competing restaurants, you can be sure that any of them will serve up a good pizza. And the pizza at Sal Vitale's was no exception.
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