Restaurateurs to bring another restaurant-speakeasy to Falls with Mattioli's Pizza, Oak & Olive

Testa Dining Group is going for double the fun when it opens the new Mattioli's Pizza and Oak & Olive — another speakeasy ― slated for June in Cuyahoga Falls.

Although the two businesses owned by Joel and Cassie Testa are different from each other, in some ways, they go hand in hand.

Mattioli's Pizza will be located at 1846 Front St. Suite C, where Mickey's Irish Pub had operated until January. Oak & Olive will be at the same address, but folks will have to find their way into the speakeasy through a secret entrance.

The new pizza spot and speakeasy are in the same Watermark building with the Testas' Butcher & Sprout restaurant, which opened in 2019, as well as The Watson Speakeasy, which they launched in March 2023.

Mattioli's Pizza, where food will be ordered at the counter, will offer carryout, delivery and outdoor seating for about 40 on the patio. Mattioli's, which will display a vintage Vespa inside, will not have indoor seating.

Mattioli's Pizza features artisan, wood-fired medium and large pizzas from Testa's family recipes, made with fresh ingredients from Italy. Testa described the pies as Neapolitan-style, gourmet pizzas, with a crispy, thinner crust with air in it.

Pizza and other dishes will be cooked on a large turntable to allow for even cooking inside the wood-fired oven, which Mickey's/Pavona's Pizza installed last year.

Pizza cupcakes at Mattioli's

Mattioli's specialty will be pizza cupcakes, sold by the half-dozen. The cupcakes can be mixed and matched, with options including cheese and pepperoni; Sicilian pepperoni, sausage and bacon; mushroom, onion and olives; buffalo chicken; arugula, prosciutto, goat cheese, mushroom and truffle oil; and s'mores with toasted marshmallow.

"Basically, you have your pizza dough, essentially in a like a muffin tin and your pizza ingredients go inside of that," Testa said. "They're actually handheld pieces."

Pizza varieties can be ordered as portable pizza muffins or medium or large pizzas.

The restaurant's Italian menu goes further, with appetizers, pastas, handhelds, salads, and desserts as well as wine, Italian-inspired cocktails, Italian seltzers and espresso.

Mattioli's will feature family recipes inspired by the Testa family's home village of Carovilli, Italy. Appetizers will include sauteed calamari as well as burrata and prosciutto. Handhelds will include calzones, pepperoni roll and a pressed Italian panini.

Among the desserts, zeppoli chocolate deep-fried dough balls, inspired by a recipe from the Carovilli region, will be offered.

"We want to be fresh, want to be authentic and really, we're Italian; Mattioli's is our family," said Testa, who chose his paternal grandmother's maiden name for the restaurant.

What's in store at Oak & Olive speakeasy

The 22-seat Watson Speakeasy has been doing so well, a speakeasy expansion was needed with the new Oak & Olive, Testa said.

"We have a three-hour wait for people to get in Friday, Saturday night" at The Watson, the entrepreneur said.

"We essentially are creating a comparable space to The Watson and we're not gonna duplicate what we did at The Watson, we're gonna make it unique," Testa said of the new Oak & Olive speakeasy

Oak & Olive's name is a nod to oak barrels for bourbon and wine and olives in martinis and olive oil. The speakeasy will offer a variety of bourbon, martinis and wine choices. That will include flights of espresso martini variations.

It will be open from 4:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays and guests can order from the full Mattioli's menu.

The 38-seat Oak & Olive will have a fresh, new look with dark grays and black, brass accents and comfortable, high-back chair seating. Bookcases will be adorned with old records and vintage pieces.

Adding to the space's intimacy, the speakeasy's windows will be covered with velvet curtains.

"It's very moody and subtle," Testa. "I would call it relaxed sophistication."

The new speakeasy has a larger bar in a much bigger space than The Watson but will still feel intimate, he said. Oak & Olive bartenders will roll out new hand-crafted cocktails that are different from those at The Watson but will also have an artistic presentation.

The speakeasy's spin on James Bond's famous Vesper cocktail will be served tableside.

A new ice program will include crafting flavored ice as well as drinks embedded in the ice at Oak & Olive. The speakeasy also will craft its own clear ice and make its own dry ice.

Both Oak & Olive and The Watson will be offering reservations, which The Watson hasn't done before.

Decor work is now being done at the new speakeasy, including buying furnishings and installing light fixtures and a new, engineered quartz bar top that's black with flecks of copper and gold. The bar top will have long-distance wireless cell phone chargers embedded in it so patrons at every seat can charge their phones by placing them on the bar top.

Arts and restaurant writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Mattioli's Pizza, Oak & Olive to open in Cuyahoga Falls in June