If you were to compile a list of restaurant genres that the East Bay has a dire shortage of, Italian-inspired wood-oven pizza wouldn’t crack the top ten. We do, after all, have plenty of that.

Still, you have to admire the owners of Lucia’s, a new Neapolitan-style pizzeria in downtown Berkeley, for having the courage of their convictions to go all-in. Among other bona fides, the restaurant boasts a bajillion-dollar Stefano Ferrera brick oven, and a consulting pizzaiolo from Italy, who trained the two co-owners and has stayed on, at least temporarily, to make sure the pizza stays up to snuff.