Brunapoli

Brunapoli has placed its bet on a game plan that seeks to capitalize on the world’s obsession with pizza and on being one of only a handful of reasonably priced casual dining restaurants on Avenida Nueva Costanera in Vitacura, a neighborhood notorious for expensive restaurants.

That bet seems to be paying off. Just months after opening, groups of diners milling around out in front of the restaurant can frequently be seen waiting up to 40 minutes for a table.

The restaurant occupies a large space, seating about 90 diners indoors, an another 20 or so out on the front terrace. There’s only one large dining room featuring a towering ceiling. It’s pleasantly and stylishly decorated in a manner that’s contemporary, but still connects the ambiance to the Neapolitan roots of the restaurant.

The quirky décor only gives an occasional hint that this is a restaurant serving Italian food.

The restaurant’s placemats contain vivid designs taken from the Italian gallery of images known as the Smorfia Napolitana that features 90 images depicting dreams, and that theme is further enhanced by a large piece of art featuring all 90 of the images on one wall of the restaurant.

The napkins, although paper, are made with a heavy-duty textured paper that provides the look and feel of a cloth napkin.

Trendy electronic music is pumped into the room giving it an up-tempo vibe.

There are oil lanterns on each table that the waiters light as the sun is setting and the restaurant moves from lunch mode to evening gastropub mode.

Although the list of available wines and beers isn’t expansive, there’s enough variety to satisfy the demands of most diners.

The menu features a few Italian antipasto items, a handful of salads and pasta dishes, and several pages of pizza options. The pizza is as close to authentic Neapolitan pizza as I’ve seen in Santiago.

On my latest visit I ordered the Vegetarian Pizza and was pleasantly surprised.

The dough was highly elastic and flavorful. The center of the pizza was the limp and drooping version of Neapolitan pizza that New Yorkers swear is authentic. I prefer mine just slightly crisper than that. It could have possibly used another 45 seconds or so in that hot oven. But that’s not really an error of execution. It’s just my personal preference.

The mozzarella was ultra-creamy and rich, and the little cherry tomatoes and mushrooms (both portobellos and white button mushrooms) were fresh and flavorful. This was a very good pizza, one that rivals the pizza served at Santiago’s most popular and successful restaurant, Tiramisu.

The service was good, but I was the only diner in the inside dining room, so the waiter wasn’t really tested.

To be honest, I was expecting this trendy, beautifully decorated restaurant to be high on form, but low on function. I was wrong. And the icing on the cake is that the prices, despite being situated among the most expensive restaurants in the city, were quite reasonable.

The pizza was excellent. The place has a good buzz, it’s attractively decorated and there’s commendable service. It’s the only restaurant in the city even approaching the production of an authentic Neapolitan pizza, although the dough at Vendetta produces a similar dough, but with less traditional ingredients. All this adds up to Brunapoli joining Tiramisu and Vendetta in the short list of top-notch pizzerias in Santiago, and being the only one in that list located in Vitacura.