Pizzana is bringing neighborhood pizza culture to Preston Hollow

Tucked away in the corner of the Preston Forest Shopping Center, Pizzana is a seemingly unassuming restaurant. In reality, it’s home to an American iteration of Neapolitan pizza whose popularity has skyrocketed over the past decade.

Walking inside, visitors will see drinks being mixed at the small bar near the entrance and then brought out to booths under the glowing orange light of the Edison bulbs hanging over them. The dim, cozy atmosphere pops with color as potted plants stud the walls, which are covered in a wallpaper of olives. Yellow and blue posters of Italian food and ingredients sit above diners as they eat.

The restaurant opened on Nov. 3, 2025, becoming the eighth of the chain’s locations.

But for owner Candace Nelson, the idea of opening up a pizza chain came by chance at a Chris O’Donnell dinner party where she ate pizza from Daniele Uditi, who’s now the chef at Pizzana.

“I always say I like to follow my gut, and I mean that quite literally,” Nelson says. “My husband and I have always had a genuine love for great pizza, but we didn’t necessarily think we were going to get into the business until we tried some life-changing pizza from Chef Daniele Uditi, who had freshly arrived from Naples. We took one bite and thought it was exceptional.”

From there, the Nelsons started drawing up plans for the restaurant, which utilized Uditi’s unique “slow dough” style of baking that has a firmer base while still maintaining classical Neapolitan traits. This firmer base allows for a wider variety of toppings, giving rise to novel menu options like the funghi pizza ($25), which has melty fontina, caramelized onions and seasonal mushrooms on it, while enabling diners to cut slices in their pies and eat them by hand.

“Our first location was in Los Angeles, at a time when LA wasn’t really known for pizza, which is hard to imagine now,” Nelson says. “We opened in an environment where people weren’t really all that excited, but we knew we had an incredible product, and we had this established customer base who liked Daniele already.”

The most popular item on the menu is the Cacio e Pepe pizza ($26), which takes the key concepts of the traditional pasta dish, combining melted fior di latte and provoloncino d’Agerola with parmigiana crema and cracked black pepper to create the fan-favorite.

“We are very well known for our Cacio e Pepe, which is the brainchild of Chef Daniele, who’s really a maverick when it comes to flavors,” Nelson says. “It’s ooey, it’s gooey, it’s got the crispiness from the crust, the creaminess from the crema and that spiciness from the black pepper. It’s got everything going on.”

Additionally, the margherita ($23) and pepperoni ($26) are fan favorites. Underrated items like the vodka pasta ($26) and the Bianca ($26) sit unassumingly on the menu but deliver just as much of a gustatory experience.

But Nelson hopes that Pizzana becomes more than a restaurant. She hopes that it becomes a key piece of the Preston Hollow community, with events like trivia night on Mondays at 7:30 p.m.

“I would love for (families) to think about Pizzana as their neighborhood spot,” Nelson says. “It’s their place where their kids are growing up and getting their weekly pizza, kind of like what we did with Sprinkles. We want people to love the food, but we also want them to have those special family memories.”

Nelson aims to do all of this while maintaining the standards for the food, not compromising on any front. By having the kitchen visible to those in the restaurant, an open environment is curated, a place that ushers people in with its accessibility and keeps them with the quality of the food.

“We want it to be comfortable,” Nelson says. “We are an Italian-inspired concept, and Italians are known for their hospitality; we just want it to be a casual, fun and joyful experience. The food is easy to love, but it may also take people by surprise. Many of our ingredients come from Italy, and we’re serious about the food but not about the experience.”

In addition to the in-house experience, Pizzana has also developed a strong takeout option. By partially preparing it in-house and letting buyers add the finishing touches, the consistency of the pizzas is maintained while still allowing people to have their pizza how they want it.

“We’ve really perfected our takeout,” Nelson says. “Neapolitan pizza can be quite fragile, but we came up with our heat and slice system, where we’ll fire it for you, then not slice it and put fresh toppings on the side, so you just put it in a 500-degree oven for a minute at home. It tastes exactly like how it would taste fresh at the restaurant.”

Even though Nelson has experience with the food industry, she still holds that breaking into the market and maintaining one’s position in it doesn’t come without difficulties.

“It’s a labor of love to run a restaurant,” Nelson says. “It’s hard these days with third-party apps; there are so many things pitted against a restaurateur. But every time we get a great review — recently, we just got an engagement — all those things make it worth it.”

Pizzana, 11700 Preston Road, Ste. 732, 214.440.4040