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Fresca chefs/owners Jimmy Sneed and his daughter Jenna (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Nabil Attie, master oven builder (Photo courtesy Morgan Porter)
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A pie fresh from Fresca on Addison's pizza oven, created by Nail Attie (Photo by Jay Paul)
It’s Labor Day, and friends gather inside Fresca on Addison: Dale and Aline Reitzer of Acacia Mid-town, Chef Michael Hayes, and three generations of Sneeds — Fresca chefs/owners Jimmy and his daughter Jenna, her newborn in tow. It has the makings of a party — except there’s no food, music or seating. The dining room is dusty, full of rubble. These culinary stars aren’t here to eat and drink, but to watch master oven builder Nabil Attie double the capacity of Fresca’s extant gas-fired pizza oven. Attie, on a whistle-stop tour of installations, arrived at 4 a.m. today. If all goes well, he’ll hit the road at 2 a.m. tomorrow and head to Boston, where he’s slated to customize yet another pizza oven.
To find Attie, you have to know somebody. He has no website. All of his business, which frequently requires him to fly to London and Dubai, comes from word of mouth. He’s built four ovens for celebrity chef Todd English alone. In Richmond, Attie has raised domes for Azzurro, Maya Mexican Grill and Tequila Lounge, as well as all of Sneed’s restaurants, including Carnivore, BlowToad and Fresca, where he’s increasing the original hearth by 18 inches today, allowing it to cook four pizzas at once.
Fresca’s pizza oven runs on gas. Jimmy Sneed explains why: “[Commercially bought] wood is very dirty, it has chemicals in it and it’s irregular. It varies from load to load.” After proselytizing the benefits of gas, which burns at a clean, hot 900 degrees and cooks Fresca’s pies in less than two minutes, Sneed cues Attie to explain the physics of Fresca’s oven.
Wiping his forehead, Attie answers, still bent over his bricks. “If you use gas, the gas occupies the oven really nicely. It’s a clean, dry heat with no particulates.”
Now cured and ready to go, the gas oven at Fresca rumbles with transformative heat, baking freshly made dough into vegan and vegetarian pizzas, made-to-order pita for sandwiches, and lentil or black bean “burger” buns. Delivery and dinner service have been added. Even better, Jimmy Sneed is doing much of the cooking these days, bringing with him his secret sources for gourmet toppings, like foraged chanterelle mushrooms.
