The recent soft opening for Anto’s Pizza Romana & Italian Market, located in Conway, South Carolina, “didn’t feel very soft,” according to owner Anthony Ludovici-DeBrigida.
The new pizzeria’s hours run from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., “and we didn’t stop from 10:57 to 7:15,” he posted on Instagram. Anto’s opened this month in the space formerly occupied by a cucumber-themed restaurant called Pickled Cucumber. It features both Roman-style squares and round New York-style whole pies.
Ludovici-DeBrigida started working in his family’s Philadelphia pizzeria when he was a kid, he told the The Sun News. “That part of the family, they were kind of in the business since they came here from Italy.”
After high school, he continued working and managing other pizzerias in Florida, even making a cameo in one of Dave Portnoy’s One Bite Reviews, where Ludovici-DeBrigida showed off his tattoo depicting Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham sacking the New England Patriots’ Tom Brady in the 2018 Super Bowl.
Several family members joined Ludovici-DeBrigida for the opening of Anto’s, including his sister, who worked for a while behind the counter “just like the old days,” he wrote on Instagram.
Since the mid-October opening, Anto’s has frequently sold out of pies, such as the Roman-style Miss Molly’s Margherita and the New York-style Anto’s Classico, another Margherita pie. He also points with pride to a pizza called Pat’s Hot Honey Pep, featuring pepperoni, ricotta, mozzarella, fresh basil and a hot honey drizzle. Additionally, the menu showcases such pies as The Pausini (prosciutto, arugula, stracciatella, mozz and a balsamic glaze) and Ma’s Meatball pie (meatballs, ricotta, broccoli rabe and mozz).
Ludovici-DeBrigida uses a biga for his Roman dough, creating a lighter, more open crumb with 80% hydration, 50% biga and imported Italian flour from Mulino Caputo. Other key ingredients include Grandé fior di latte and Stanislaus tomatoes. The New York-style dough sports a 64% hydration and 50% biga.
The pizzas are named after family members, loved ones and even pets, all of whom are pictured on either side of the menu board on the restaurant’s wall.
Ludovici-DeBrigida also believes New York water makes a difference in pizza dough and uses a water filtration system from NY Watermaker. He previously ran the pizza kitchen at Coast to Coast Pizza Company in Marathon, Florida, where the NY Watermaker system also played a key role. Prior to that, he co-owned a pizzeria with his uncle in Philadelphia. “It feels like I’ve been in the pizza shop literally since I was born. My family has just been doing it for so long,” Ludovici-DeBrigida told Keys Weekly in 2022 while still making pizzas for Coast to Coast.
“The gold standard is New York pizza in the northeast,” Ludovici told Keys Weekly at the time. “I wanted to mimic the style and bring down the recipes that have been in my family forever, so I got the blessing from them. I was never going to just do this on my own.”
