
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 13, 1994                   TAG: 9405130068
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BETH MACY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

IRONTO CHEF TOSSES DOUGH IN ROANOKE

There's Pet City across the street, Happy's Flea Market down the way and the occasional stereo-thumping car driving by at Arturo's Italian Kitchen, 5236 Williamson Road in Roanoke.

It's not the same scenic mountain view chef Paul DaSilva had from the plate-glass window at Mountain View Italian Kitchen in Ironto. No hairpin turns, no near-misses with the local deer population and no long drives from Roanoke for the best New York-style pizza around.

In fact, only the food is the same - at least to this Conspicuous Consumer's palate. Spinach pizza with a cheesy cream sauce, double-crusted stuffed pizza filled with meats and cheese, and specialty pasta dishes featuring chicken, veal and seafood. Same yummy crust with sesame seeds, same secret-recipe bread, same smart-mouthed Long Islander bantering back and forth with customers over "a slice of pie."

As the sign out front says, DaSilva is no longer in Ironto. He and his wife, Rene, have split from her parents' Ironto business - in a kind of family pizza war - and have opened up a restaurant of their own, housed in the old Paulo's Restaurant.

Good news for pizza fans in a hunger and in a hurry. But starving Sunday drivers shouldn't forget the old standby in Ironto - "Witness Protection Pizza," as one fan calls it - where the drive is almost as interesting as the food.

by CNB