Growing up in different regions of Italy, cousins Giuseppe Pugliese and Maurizio Piccolo both loved food, family and the art of cooking. And they’ve brought those passions to their ownership of Maurizio’s Pizzeria, a Neptune restaurant that’s been baking freshness, quality, authenticity and love into their pizza and other Italian specialties for over two decades.

“I was born in Sicily and came to the U.S. with my family when I was 8,” shared Piccolo, 55, a Jackson resident who lived in Brooklyn and Staten Island before moving to New Jersey in the late 1980s. Born in Naples, Pugliese, 45, came to the U.S. in 1999 and hails from a family of restaurateurs.