Tacconelli’s Pizzeria in Maple Shade, New Jersey is in the process of opening up a new location in Westmont at 164 N Haddon Avenue. When What Now Philadephia spoke with Vince Tacconelli, he said that it was likely that the Westmont Tacconelli’s Pizzeria would not be ready to open until this fall, maybe around August or September. Tacconelli also said that the new restaurant will likely only be open for dinner at first and then expand into lunch hours later on.
Tacconelli’s Pizzeria is a restaurant that now has five generations of Tacconellis as part of the business. The Vince Tacconelli that What Now Philadelphia spoke to is the son of Vince Tacconelli Jr. and is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). Tacconelli’s Pizzeria began in 1946 after the soldiers in the family returned home from World War II and Giovanni Tacconelli decided to make old-world tomato pies with his brick oven instead of the bread that he had been baking for decades.
These days in Maple Shade, Tacconelli’s Pizzeria, opened by Vince Tacconelli Jr. and his wife Doris Tacconelli, has a menu with the restaurant’s pizza as its core. The pizza menu doesn’t change with its red pies and white pies but still gives the customers lots of choices. You can get a regular Margherita or a white Margherita pizza for example. There are the standard mozzarella pies and provolone, Formaggio, BBQ chicken, and buffalo chicken versions of the pizza.
But as Vince Tacconelli told What Now Philadelphia via phone, the pasta menu is where the variety comes in. The pasta, as well as all of the other ingredients and dishes, are all made fresh and in-house, by Vince and the other staff. Exactly what pasta dishes are going to be served each day is something that Vince decides on every morning based on seasonal ingredient availability and his own creativity. This morning, he said that spinach fettuccine is what he felt moved to make, so spinach fettuccini will be on the pasta menu tonight.
The restaurant has four salads, the house, the wedge, the greek salad, and the caesar salad. As for the desserts, also made in-house, there are traditional choices like spumoni, Tartufo, and tiramisu, but there is also The Dooley which is a twelve-inch pizza baked with chocolate morsels, chocolate syrup, and sliced bananas which is then dusted with powdered sugar, the Dark Side of The Moon, which is rich fudge cake soaked with coffee liqueur, filled with chocolate mousse and iced with a whipped pure dark chocolate ganache and topped with a crescent moon, and a Bailey’s Irish cream torte which is vanilla cake soaked with Irish whiskey and then layered with Bailey’s Irish cream mousse.
As a student at CIA, Vince Tacconnelli interned at Osteria Philadelphia when it was owned by chefs Mark Vetri and Jeff Michaud, who he considers a mentor, and with Suzanne Goin, owner of A.O.C., Lucques, and Tavern in Los Angeles. His goal is to provide high-quality food at affordable prices for families, so while the food is all house-made, he keeps the price point low so that families will have no problem being able to pick up a pizza or pasta from their restaurant. Tacconelli was very happy to let us know that his wife will be joining Tacconelli’s Pizzeria team very soon.
Bean 2 Bean Coffee Roasters provides the coffee beans for the espresso drinks and Tacconnelli is a chef consultant with Rosito Bisani, who provides the restaurant’s pasta and pizza-making equipment. You can also buy some of the restaurant’s fresh-made pasta to take home. Tacconelli will be using a Rosito Bisnai artisanal round oven to make appetizers like baked cannelloni.
With such wonderful care put into the food and Tacconelli’s commitment to affordable pricing for families, Tacconelli’s Pizzeria will be a welcome addition to Westmont for everyone.
