Every Tuesday, Luigi Nardi goes to the pizzeria in Stanfordville to spend a quiet hour making dough, cutting it into about 40 to 50 smaller balls for pizzas that will be baked through the next two days. He weighs each one — no less than 18.4 ounces and no more than 18.7, before laying them to rest in the refrigerator overnight.
Since it opened in June 2024 on Route 82, VAL’s has served fresh pizzas, pastas, and subs from Wednesday through Sunday. The V in VAL’s belongs to a former business partner who quit early on, but co-owners Andres Ellis, 23, and Luigi Nardi, 43, have turned it into a spot beloved by Stanford residents. Customers often feast at the single, long communal table as if they’re at a friend’s dinner party.
“The best way to immerse yourself in the community is by being a reliable place where people can come and be themselves,” Nardi said. “You are just responsible for making their day a little bit better.”
The kitchen is where Nardi said he gets to be an artist — experimenting with flavors and toppings, some of which come from his own garden in Hyde Park. “Every batch of dough is like a little science project that you have to tweak,” he said. “It’s just such a touch and feel business.”
Ellis, who is also the drummer for Fate Envoy, an alternative rock band based in Highland, brings a perfectionist streak to both music and pizza. Only once did he falter on his turn to make the dough. He knew as soon as looked at it the next morning — heavy and dense — that he’d forgotten to add sea salt, which works with the yeast to keep the dough light and airy.
The pair take turns preparing a batch of dough every two days. The flour is a blend of wheat and spelt semolina that Nardi said is easier on the stomach than conventional all-purpose flour. When summer peaks, the flour is chilled and cold water is poured into the mix.
“If you’re using 80 degree water and spinning it for 15 minutes, by the time it’s done, that dough’s going to be like 95 degrees,” Nardi said. “Then it’s just going to blow up on the table. You don’t want that. You want it to do its growing in the refrigerator, slowly, over time. Otherwise it gets really tough and hard to stretch.”
Nardi grew up working in restaurants that his parents, Carmelina and Giuseppe, owned across the Hudson Valley. The couple immigrated from Italy in 1969 and ran an Italian restaurant in Hyde Park for about 30 years, then one in Staatsburg, and later, a pizzeria in Wappinger.
“As long as I could look over this counter I was somehow involved in the kitchen,” Nardi said. “When my friends were partying in high school I was working every Friday and Saturday night.”
He spent a decade in Charlotte, N.C., running a pizzeria with his oldest brother, Frank. But in 2019, Frank died suddenly of a heart attack, and Luigi returned to New York. During the pandemic, he drove regularly from Hyde Park to work at his uncle’s restaurant, Santo Pizzeria & Ristorante in Amenia, passing the same vacant-looking spot in Stanfordville. He soon realized that the property was owned by his brother Joseph’s friend, Sean Sambell, who runs the auto shop behind it, and saw an opportunity.
Ellis, whose mother homeschooled him and his siblings on Long Island, had a different path to the kitchen. He began working at a hydroponic farm in Ronkonkoma at 13, where he learned to grow vegetables without soil, keeping the plants healthy by monitoring the acidity of the water. He later worked at a bagel shop, and then at Santo, where he met Nardi.
Together, they built a menu of Italian-American classics for VAL’s, including salads and garlic knots, with some room for experimenting. Nardi recently tried a Turkish-inspired pizza similar to lahmacun — a flatbread with minced meat and finely chopped vegetables — and is considering adding it to the specials.
The pizzas also reflect Nardi’s sense of humor, with several of them named after Italian slang. The Jabroni — a playful term for someone not so bright — comes with sausage, onions, and spicy peppers and is a VAL’s favorite. The Mammalucco — which translates roughly to clown or fool — has chicken cutlets, pepperoni, and hot honey. The Paesano (or buddy), is topped with cherry tomatoes, capicola, fresh mozzarella, roasted garlic, and basil.
Nardi grows herbs, zucchini, cucumbers, and kale on a single acre behind his house, and his 40 chickens provide most of the eggs. The kitchen goes through 3 to 5 pounds of home-grown basil a week — enough to fill a large garbage bag — for its pesto. If it were up to Nardi, he would grow every ingredient they use. For now, he sources mozzarella from Churchtown Dairy in Hudson and most of the additional produce from Deep Roots Farm in Copake.
He is intentional about every part of the business, including the staff. He prefers to have high schoolers at the register or young adults like Alyssa Branam, who is working toward a degree in pediatric sonography.
“I think every kid out of high school should have to work in some sort of food service for a year,” Nardi said. “Learn how to have interaction with people, how to solve problems. Learn how to deal with an angry customer. Every job is going to need that.”
Branam, who also works at a restaurant in Rhinebeck, said her friends often drop by on her shifts to grab a slice and chat.
Nardi appreciates Ellis’ business instincts and high standards for food that match his own. Ellis values Nardi’s lifelong experience in restaurants. “[Owning a business] is not for the faint of heart,” Ellis said. “He’s been doing this longer than I’ve been alive. He has a wealth of knowledge. He knows what he’s doing.”
The pizzeria serves over 100 customers every week, Nardi said. The number doubles in the summer, when tourists arrive and vacation homes fill up.
For Marc Smith, a Stanford resident, the pizzeria has become a lifeline during a difficult stretch — his wife is undergoing cancer treatment. But he can continue to coach his son’s Little League team, knowing the family can always rely on getting a good meal at VAL’s.
“The pizza’s always consistent,” Smith said. “I’ve never had a day where it’s like, they’re a little off today or this doesn’t taste like it normally does.”
While VAL’s owners enjoy the noise and bustle of their business, running a pizzeria has tested their resilience. “Everyone wants perfect soil, great sun, rain every couple days,” Nardi said. “It never works that way. Ask anyone with a farm. You never get perfect thriving conditions ever and it’s the same thing here. You have to learn how to thrive in the chaos.”