Doctors open Neapolitan pizza restaurant in Paso Robles: ‘We just decided to go for it’
A new Paso Robles restaurant strives to bring the most authentic Neapolitan pizza to the Central Coast.
Dr. Pat Haran opened Via Caravaggio 147 at Paso Market Walk in December with his wife and business partner, Dr. Kathryn Haran, after training with a master pizza maker in Italy.
“We weren’t going to do it unless we could do it to where the pizza is ... perfectly correct from a Neapolitan level,” Pat Haran said.
In other words, it’s the same kind of pizza diners would discover if they “(got) off a plane in Naples and (went) to one of the best pizzerias in the world,” he said. “This is pretty much what you’re gonna get” at Via Caravaggio 147.
SLO County doctor pivots from emergency medicine to pizza
Italian cuisine and culture has been a core component of life for Pat Haran, who grew up in Camarillo.
Haran worked under a chef from Palermo, Italy, from boyhood through completing college at UCLA, Kathryn Haran said.
Her husband then had to make a choice: stay on at Ottavio’s Italian Restaurant in Camarillo and dive deep into his passion for Italian cuisine and culture, or pursue a career in medicine, Kathryn Haran said.
Pat Haran ended up attending medical school at UC San Diego.
“He went off on that path for a while, but always had a passion for cooking at home,” Kathryn Haran said.
She and her husband worked as emergency room physicians in a group that works with Tenet Health Central Coast properties including Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo and Twin Cities Community Hospital in Templeton.
For years, the Harans talked about opening their own Neapolitan restaurant. After their adult children completed school, they decided to take the plunge.
“Everything came together at the right time,” said Kathryn Haran, who is now chair of emergency medicine at Sierra Vista. “If we know one thing from being ER doctors, the one thing is that you may not have another opportunity.”
“We just decided to go for it,” Pat Haran said.
Paso Robles restaurant owner trains with pizza expert in Italy
In fall 2021, Pat Haran spent two months learning how to make Neapolitan pizza from the man considered the foremost expert on the cuisine, Enzo Coccia.
“It’s more rigorous than anything I did in medical school,” Pat Haran said, noting that “the majority of people just get sent home the first week or two” of the program.
For Haran’s final exam, he had to create about 90 Neapolitan pizzas in an hour, said his wife, who traveled to Naples for two weeks at the end of the program to support her husband.
“He relates it to essentially one of our hardest rotations through medical school, which is trauma surgery,” Kathryn Haran said of her husband. “It was so hardcore and academic and very structured and rigorous.”
Some of the people who complete Coccia’s program go on to work at his pizzerias in Naples while others continue the Neapolitan culinary tradition — recognized by UNESCO as an intangible heritage in 2017 — elsewhere.
Via Caravaggio 147 menu features Neapolitan favorites
According to Pat Haran, Via Caravaggio 147 puts “a focus on culture and tradition and respecting that above everything else.”
The name of the Paso Robles restaurant pays tribute to the address of Coccia’s pizzerias, which are located at 53 and 94, respectively, on Via Caravaggio in Naples.
“The menu is almost like two menus,” Pat Haran said. “One of side of the street is exactly traditional Neapolitan. The other side of the street is an open canvas and you can do what you want.”
On the Neapolitan side, the marinara pizza is made with just a light dusting of pecorino romano cheese, Italian oregano, basil, garlic and extra virgin olive oil to spotlight the dough.
The pizza also uses San Marzano tomatoes, which are grown in the Campania region of Italy near Naples.
Another Neapolitan-style pizza on the menu is the margherita con bufala, which is made with the same San Marzano tomatoes, as well as fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese, basil and pecorino romano cheese.
The menu also features contemporary inventions such as a rosemary pistachio pizza, as pizza topped with lemon and arugula and carne piccante, a meat-heavy pizza.
There’s a rotating list of Italian wines to accompany the pizza as well as a pesto bread appetizer, salad and desserts.
According to Kathryn Haran, Via Caravaggio 147 has found the perfect home at Paso Market Walk, a mixed use development that includes restaurants Finca, Momotaro Ramen and in bloom.
“We were really lucky to find this spot ... It really fits our business model and what we want to portray,” she said, adding that she and her husband want to make Neapolitan pizza “the most available to people in Paso and in the community.”
How is Neapolitan pizza different?
According to the Harans, there is a lot that goes into crafting Neapolitan pizza, but the star component is the pizza dough.
“There’s always only four things and it’s flour, salt, water, and yeast,” Pat Haran said. “If you measured them exactly to the gram every day and you did that for 10 days in a row, the dough would only be correct by chance with those numbers probably about three of those days.”
Neapolitan pizza experts learn to go beyond measurements and use their five senses to maintain the integrity of the dough every single day without fail.
“You get to a point where ... you end up with the same final product every single day when you’re making dough,” Haran said.
The dough has a high level of hydration, which interacts with the high temperature of the oven to create a lot of steam, yielding a crust that is soft, chewy and crunchy all at once.
“It’s a really different type of pizza than what you would get at Domino’s or Blaze,” Kathryn Haran said.
While anyone can claim to offer Neapolitan-style pizza, a chef must go through training and certification to be considered truly authentic.
The Harans’ plan to get certified by the True Neapolitan Pizza Association — Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana in Italian — a nonprofit organization that makes sure restaurants are following its standards for Neapolitan pizza.
“It needs to be at that level,” Pat Haran said. “Otherwise we weren’t going to do it.”
Via Caravaggio 147 is open 3 to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday at 1803 Spring St. in Paso Robles, or until dough runs out. Call 805-221-5163 or visit viacaravaggio147.com for more information.
This story was originally published March 4, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
