Chances are you already know and love A16, one of the most beloved pizza-and-wine destinations in SF. The original—named after a motorway that runs from Naples to Canosa di Puglia in Italy—opened in the Marina in 2004, when it was hard to find blistered Neapolitan-style pizza in the city.
A16 has since grown to four locations, scoring a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand and a James Beard Award for Outstanding Wine along the way. Owner Shelley Lindgren is an expert in Southern Italian wines and has published two books, won an IACP award, and been knighted by the Consulate General of Italy in SF.
One of those four locations just debuted in Napa this summer, so it’s an exciting time to catch up with Lindgren as A16 celebrates more than 20 years in the Bay Area. She’s dishing on what’s new at the Napa location, must-try dishes, and more.
Read on for how to have the best time at A16, and then book your seat on OpenTable.
This interview is lightly edited for length and clarity.
What do you think your X factor is?
Shelley Lindgren: The X factor is our team and the people we work alongside that are passionate and working closely together. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to have an opening team like we have in Napa. We all feel it together. Everyone’s in it a hundred percent. And our guests can feel it. You can taste it.
What’s new or different at the new location of A16 Napa?
We have a live fire—on our menu, we call it focolare—that’s adding a nice dimension of flavor to our vegetables and meats. We have some fun skewers, like a bombetta Pugliese, and octopus and spot prawns. So that’s been really fun, kind of like a new toy.
What’s the one dish you’ll never remove from the menu?
We have our maccaronara pasta that we always have on. We were able to take the recipe from the hilltop town of Avellino called Nusco. Chef Antonio Pisaniello still has his restaurant there, and taught us the classic Neapolitan ragù with the maccaronara pasta. It’s a very soulful dish. That’s on the menu everywhere, at all of the locations.
What’s the underdog of the menu at the new A16 Napa?
We have an octopus dish in the focolare. Usually, people who love it love it, but not everyone’s used to eating it all the time. But chef Yosuke [Machida, who oversees the food at all the restaurants] has a very tender, fresh preparation, and then they roast it with the fire. So then it just adds this beautiful texture and flavor. It tastes like you just had it on the beach.
What is your personal favorite on the wine list?
The wine list in Napa was more challenging than I anticipated. Sitting in Napa, we’re going to a place with a lot of talented friends and a world of wine. Take Matthiasson Wines, and their incredible talent, but also their love of Italian grapes. They brought an old-vine Zinfandel from the late 1800s, which originally came from Puglia, just like many of our new dishes. You can still find these heritage clones of things that were planted when Napa was first becoming a wine country.
What is a hidden gem on the cocktail list?
We’re talking about doing a Calabrian Bloody Mary, with a little bite of food on top—we were thinking an olive, a little bocconcini mozzarella ball, and a pickled pepper. We haven’t filled it yet, but we have a granita machine in house, and we’re thinking of one with wine and one with harder drinks, like a limoncello slushy and then a frosé, perhaps [Lindgren is married to cocktail legend Greg Lindgren, owner of Rye and 15 Romolo, who does some spritz consulting for A16 ‘by default.’]
Who’s your longest regular?
I’m biased, but we have the most incredible regulars. We do have a gentleman in particular who is inching up to have dined with us 500 times. We’re planning for when that happens—expect some fireworks in the city. His name is Joe Feigenbaum. He’s one of the people whose kids I saw grow up, and now he has weekly dinners with friends and family.
Who’s your longest serving staff member?
We have a few people who have been with us since the beginning. They’re like our family. Tim Baumann and Juan Vega, they’ve been with us since day one. Tim works on the wine team and bartends, and Juan is a kitchen manager.
What’s the best seat in the house at the new A16 Napa?
There’s a bar in the middle of the room that wraps around—it’s a double-sided bar — and that’s been filling up pretty early so far. There are these corner tables, there’s a front window, and it’s flanked with banquettes. The front windows are nice, a little more intimate maybe, and the banquettes are comfortable. Then we have these big basket lights and burlap curtains.
When is the best time to find a reservation?
When we add the parklet soon [in Napa], that’ll add a lot of seating. It’ll be really nice, because there are olive trees, and we worked on making it a place where people feel comfortable. We’re also on the shady side of the street, so come around the later part of the afternoon, and it’s shaded.
What’s been the biggest change across all of the restaurants since the opening?
Technology has changed so much. We’ve always been on OpenTable, since we opened. I’ve seen a lot more ways for delivery service, booking reservations, scheduling teams, like everything. In the past two years, I feel like we changed our whole structure of operations.
Imagine, when I worked at Fleur de Lys, which was one of the first OpenTable restaurants ever, we had this big red book of reservations. We were like, ‘How would we survive without that?!’ And you adapt to OpenTable, and now that’s your big red book. It’s been really good.
What’s your favorite award you’ve won?
Well, it’s hard to compete with a knighthood. It was a surprise! I was at Rockridge one day, when the consulate general came over. And Ian D’Agata, who was the leading voice in the world of Italian wine, and Rolando Beramendi, who owns Manicaretti Imports. They all surprised me with that.
But then the James Beard Award for Outstanding Wine. I was nominated like six or seven times, and the joke was I was like the Susan Lucci of this award. But really being nominated is already winning.
Becky Duffett is a food writer living and eating in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Eater SF.
