Next time you’re on Pacific Avenue in downtown Tacoma, consider sampling a slice of thin Neapolitan-style — or thick Sicilian-style — pizza offered by one of the city’s great new pizzerias, Apizza Little Italy. Opened by Chef Marshall Jett earlier this year, the family restaurant (pronounced ah-beetz) bakes pizza to perfection inside a 12,000-pound clay oven Jett built himself and lovingly calls Il Grande.

Using from-scratch dough and homemade sauces smeared with a pastry brush, Jett approaches pizza-making like an art. Jett grew up in New York and cooked alongside his mother at a young age. Those formative lessons in the kitchen wound up inspiring a lifetime of culinary endeavors, including his former restaurants, Veraci Pizza in Ballard and Wedgewood.