Dante is Omaha’s first restaurant specializing in Neapolitan pizza and rustic Italian cuisine featuring ingredient-driven dishes with fresh produce from local farmers. We are committed to providing our guests an authentic Italian experience, from our wine list to our menu to our indoor bocce court.
About Neapolitan Pizza
What exactly is Neapolitan pizza? “Neapolitan” refers to anything done in the fashion of Naples, a port city in southern Italy. Pizza is arguably that city’s greatest contribution to the world. And while pizza has been made there in some form for centuries, the tomato-topped pies we enjoy came into fashion in the late 1800s when a pizzaiolo (pizzamaker) honored Queen Margherita with a patriotic pizza featuring the colors of the Italian flag: red (tomato), white (mozzarella) and green (basil).
The tradition of Neapolitan pizza is preserved today by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, or Vera. This organization, headquartered in Naples, certifies that pizzerias all over the world uphold the traditions of Neapolitan pizzamaking.
Ingredients: The dough must be made with type 00 flour, the sauce from San Marzano tomatoes, and the cheese must be fresh buffalo- or cow-milk mozzarella. We use house-made cow-milk mozzarella.
Oven: The pizza is cooked in a wood-burning oven at about 800 degrees.
Technique: The dough is kneaded by a low-speed mixer. The crust is stretched by hand, and the pizzas are cooked in 90 seconds.
About the Chef, Nick Strawhecker
Nick Strawhecker recently returned to his native Omaha to design and build Dante Pizzeria Napoletana, where he is Owner/Chef.
Born and to some extent raised in Omaha, Nick believes his travels as a youngster fundamentally influenced both his career and now his endeavor in Dante. After living for three years in England in his early teens and traveling extensively throughout Europe, Nick and his family returned to Omaha where he graduated from high school and enrolled into the prominent culinary program at Johnson & Wales in Providence.
After culinary school, Nick spent two years in Flagstaff working at a small bistro while attending Northern Arizona University. He then moved to the Piedmont region in Italy to learn more about Italy and its beautiful cuisine at The Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners (ICIF), followed by a stint at the Michelin-rated Il Falconierie in southern Tuscany. Upon returning to the states, Nick worked for five years in Chicago where he gained incredible experience at Aria (Fairmont Hotel), assisting in a $5 million makeover of the restaurant. He then joined Chef Shawn McClain at Spring, where he spent three years, and rose to Sous Chef. In 2006, Nick left Chicago to be Sous Chef at Philadelphia’s XIX, located in one of the US’s four Park Hyatt Hotels. He returned to Omaha in 2008 to pursue his lifelong dream of opening his own restaurant. A year after Dante opened, Nick was named to the 2010 class of Omaha’s 40 Under 40.
