b2ap3_thumbnail_pizza-pie-at-lucali_20130718-191118_1.JPG

I told a New York City-based-pizza- aficionado friend they'd opened a Lucali in Miami's hippest new hood, Sunset Harbour, she was quick to reply, with a toss of her well blow-dried hair that she didn't believe it because, "isn't that guy like insane about making all his pizza himself?" So New York. Luckily, New Yorkers mean nice pizza and this is the nicest pizza around.

Lucali's Miami location, in a converted dry cleaner, is so New York, so Brooklyn to be exact. Not in a Girls grit and mis-worn midriff kind of way, but in that totally Brooklyn polished bohemianism and care for quality that is so hard to find done right off that island. At the Miami location the tin ceiling is just the right amount of worn in (and flown in from Brooklyn as can be expected), the produce is artfully displayed on the marble pizza counter and lit by candlesticks - even in midday, the furniture feels like it was picked up on a bucolic road trip flea market expedition. On this particular Saturday the restaurant has a quiet buzz of a few tables of two or three and is mostly empty but a long family-style table that's been set up in the middle of the space to accommodate a table of young parents and their suspender wearing babies. And yes, we're still in Miami, not Brooklyn.

The insane pizza man my friend speaks of is Mark Iacono and he's transplanted his insane love of pizza to Miami in the first outpost out of the City, Iacono spend two years renovating his Brooklyn space by night after his day job. The care for the vibe of the space and the highest-quality of pizza ingredients, made fresh in a brick oven garnered Lucali a culty pizza following the way that things get culty in New York.

Let's get culty about Lucali.

If you need to impress a foodie friend or have a pizza-loving non- discretionary dad like I do, take them to Lucali.

Basic pies (cheese, thin crust, sauce and basil or garlic if you want it) starts at $26, but it's easily enough to feed four. My table was three and ordered the plain pizza (plus garlic and basil, duh), half with onion, and a fennel and celery salad with shaved parmesan and we took home a few slices.

lucali is a little brooklyn in miami.