Next, we enjoyed an old friend -- the Sausage Pepper and Oregano Pizza. "We ship the water in from New York," Chef Bernardo said. "That's the main component; it's why I get it so crispy. It's only in the oven for four minutes. It's basically prepared the same way as the Grimaldi's [owners of Patsy's], which we have here now, only they have a water filtration system. Although we get it shipped in, if we run out we use Evian or San Pellegrino. What I love about the sausage pizza and what is different with our pizza is the sauce. We use San Marzano tomatoes and with the sauce we take all the salamis that we have in the restaurant -- like prosciutto, etc. -- and instead of using straight marinara sauce we enhance with a lot of salamis to give it that meatfulness. We also use a hot and sweet sausage. When we developed the pizza we didn't want the traditional round size. We wanted it kind of like a racetrack -- a horse track. If you cut the pizza down the middle, everyone gets a little bite with a little crust to it, too; it's great for sharing and not like a whole slice. This epitomizes the concept of Nove. We want you to eat family style, to share, to get involved. It's a great dish for a two-top or four-top; it's not that filling, but it is addictive!"

After we'd tasted the pizza, we switched to one of Nove's homemade pastas, the tortellini. "That's one of our handmade pastas that we make daily," Chef Bernardo said. "It has the prosciutto, ricotta, tomatoes and arugula. It's very simple and clean. It's like when I went to Italy; it was so simple, not complex. There are not a lot of things going on where you don't know what you're eating."

Next we tried Chef Bernardo's signature dish, the Spaghetti Nove. "The Spaghetti Nove is our Fruitti di Mare -- our signature pasta," he explained. "It was actually developed in a famous restaurant in Rome called Quincy and Gabrielli's. Here, it's created in the dining room nightly by one guy. It's our top seller; we sell over 600 of them monthly. The guy will be preparing 50 to 60 of them every Friday and Saturday night. It brings so much to the dining room -- the garlic, the basil, seafood flambe. The aroma goes right through the restaurant. It’s a squid ink pasta and regular hand-crafted dry pasta, artisanal from Italy. I really like this dish. I'm really comfortable with that dish; it's always spot on. You get the fennel and the freshness. It's a winner."