Angela Petruzzelli: Sprezza

Angela Petruzzelli is about to open her dream Italian restaurant
Sprezza in downtown Richmond.  When she moved to Richmond
with her boyfriend in 2020, she recognized restaurants that
served Italian food, but the style of Italian food they served
was not the kind she preferred.


"[Italian] food is not only something I relate so strongly to,
but it's something that I felt was missing here. And so the
minute I moved to Richmond, I knew immediately that I could bring
what I grew up eating here," Petruzzelli said. "Obviously I say
this with so much respect for the Italian food that already
exists here, but I think that Richmond was missing authentic
Italian food, Italian food that you would find in Italy, Italian
food that I grew up eating that my Nonna used to make."


Petruzzelli's family is from Southern coastal Italy where seafood
rules.


"We love linguine alle vongole (linguine with clams). We do a lot
of cozze which are muscles. A lot of octopus, a lot of sea
urchin," she said. 'It's an acquired taste, but when you put it
in pasta, it's so velvety and so perfect like it's just the best
thing ever. You don't find it that much in the United States, so
I'm so excited to do that."


Shortly after moving to Richmond from Miami, the COVID-19
pandemic shut down the city.


"Honestly, it took me a year and a half to know that people even
lived in Richmond. When we moved here, [her boyfriend's] company
put us up in Short Pump and it was a ghost town. We would go to
Short Pump mall, and obviously, the stores were all closed. We
would just walk around and be like, 'Wow, what a nice mall. It's
so sad no one is here," she said.


It was during that time of isolation that the idea of Sprezza was
born.


"He was working from home. And I was like, 'Oh, we live in an
apartment complex and nobody's leaving their houses, I could
start selling trays of lasagna,'" she said. "Then I started doing
more research and I started becoming a little bit more reasonable
with what I could actually do. And I saw the pop-up [restaurant]
scene was crazy here."


After establishing a social media presence and reaching out to
people already entrenched in Richmond restaurants, Petruzzelli
began hosting Sprezza pop-ups.


It did not take long for word to spread and for her events to
sell out.


"It was me making all the food from front to end and then [my
boyfriend] putting it in the bags and handing it off to
customers. That's how we went for six or seven months," she said.
"[We sold out pop-ups] every time for almost a year and a half
now. I've never not sold out. I mean if that's not a sign to go
for it. I don't know what it is."


In Petruzzelli's case, going for it means opening Sprezza -- the
restaurant.


She found a location where the old Morton's once served steaks in
Shockoe Slip.


"I want it to feel elevated and really special. I don't want it
to feel like an Olive Garden or a Cheesecake Factory. I want it
also to be a place where you come and you're comfortable," she
said. "In Italy a white tablecloth is standard. So I want it to
be a place where you go and have an amazing, phenomenal meal. But
I want it to be a place where you can also go and you don't feel
uncomfortable hanging out for two and a half hours and drinking
four bottles of wine and getting a little loud."


She hopes to have Sprezza up and running in 2022, perhaps as
early as mid-November.


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