RESTAURANT NEWS | NEW YORK
Apizza Alimentari Goes From Espresso to Negronis
The new restaurant just outside Syracuse adds dinner service, with regional Italian pastas, warm focaccia, and cocktails rounding out the day.
APIZZA ALIMENTARI | MAP | INSTAGRAM
By Maria Rodriguez
5:25 a.m. ET, Oct. 6, 2026
AUTHOR BIO: With a day job that requires constant travel, Maria Rodriguez is likely a regular at your favorite restaurant. She’s reviewed restaurants since 2007 in magazines from Spain to Seattle.
Apizza Alimentari seems designed to slow down the simple act of stopping in for coffee. There are croissants to consider, focaccia sandwiches to come back for, and Roman-style pizza that gives lunch its own argument. Now, with dinner service added September 30, the new Italian café in Fayetteville, outside Syracuse, New York, has supplied another reason to postpone cooking at home.
Opened July 8, Alimentari is the work of Paul Messina, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que founder John Stage, and pastry chef and partner Amy Chrisogonou, with executive chef Padriac Adolfi leading the kitchen. Messina and Stage also own downtown Syracuse’s Apizza Regionale. Here, they’ve built something with a broader daily rhythm: a bakery, salumeria, market, pizzeria, and full-service trattoria, all sharing the former Kirby’s Grill & Taphouse.
The restaurant takes inspiration from Italy’s 20 regions, a considerable assignment for one kitchen. Its bakery allows France a little influence too, pairing Italian flavors with French pastry techniques. Fresh-baked focaccia and croissants accompany Segafredo Zanetti coffee, while the market sells provisions for anyone still inclined to make dinner themselves.
Pizza follows Rome’s example. The rectangular pies are made with local stone-ground wheat and Italian tipo 00 flour, with dough fermented for up to 72 hours. This is pizza al taglio, or “by the cut,” with an airy crust—a different proposition from the Naples–New York hybrid pies at Apizza Regionale.
At dinner, the geography expands. Rigatoni alla Norma comes with roasted eggplant, spicy tomato sauce, and ricotta salata; linguine alla Nerano gets baby zucchini, basil, lemon, aged provolone, and pecorino. Orecchiette combines housemade sausage, braised cannellini beans, and broccoli rabe. The pasta selection mixes housemade noodles with imported bronze-die pasta.
Before any of that, there’s warm focaccia served in cast iron, its Parmigiano-Reggiano and herb crust accompanied by tomato jam butter. Beyond pasta, choices include a bone-in Duroc pork chop with vinegar peppers and chicken cooked under a brick with salsa verde.
The bar offers several members of the Negroni family, plus an Old/New Fashioned made with rum, rye, and fig honey. Between the morning pastry case and the evening cocktail list, Alimentari has made repeat visits part of the concept. You might come for coffee and leave with dinner plans.
