Matteo Venini

The Idea

Venini’s cooking at Stellina Pizzeria gathers several expressions of Italy into one cohesive, easygoing rhythm. Neo-Neapolitan style pizzas anchor the menu, while Italian street food inspired by the southern coast brings in a brighter, more casual pulse. Handmade pastas and panini served on pizza dough round out the experience, giving the pizzeria a sense of movement between tradition and adaptation. The result is a compact culinary language—one that speaks in familiar forms, but with enough texture and variation to keep each bite interesting. The specialty is specific and deliberate: Neo-Neapolitan pizzas and southern Italian coast-inspired street food. Together, they create a dialogue between craft and appetite, between the disciplined pleasure of dough and fire and the faster, more spontaneous pleasures of food meant to be eaten with immediacy and joy. Venini’s own words capture that spirit without ornament: "Buon appetito, amici. The Italians are back." It reads as a greeting, certainly, but also as a kind of declaration—warm, communal, and unpretentious, with the confidence of someone opening the door and expecting hunger to follow.

The Execution

Before becoming Executive Chef and co-owner at Stellina Pizzeria in Washington, D.C., Venini worked as Executive Chef at Ristorante Tosca. His career also included the role of Executive Chef at Posto. Those earlier kitchens form the background hum beneath the current work, lending weight to the ease with which he moves between pizza, pasta, panini, and coastal street-food references. At Stellina, that experience is not displayed as ceremony; it is felt in the flow of the menu and the steadiness of the point of view. The pizzeria format becomes a frame for a broader Italian conversation, one that can move from hand-formed dough to the generosity of a shared plate without breaking its rhythm.

On the Record

Matteo Venini is Executive Chef and co-owner of Stellina Pizzeria in Washington, D.C. He previously served as Executive Chef at Ristorante Tosca, and his career includes Executive Chef at Posto. His work at the pizzeria modernizes the Italian pizza counter through signature Neo-Neapolitan style pizzas, southern coast-inspired Italian street food, handmade pastas, and panini made with pizza dough. The through-line remains clear: Italian food as a center of gravity, shaped by memory and made present again in service.

In Their Words “Buon appetito, amici. The Italians are back.”