Speck Pizza + Street Food ready to debut

Gabriele Carmelo Ruggieri is a force of nature. Once you meet Ruggieri, you're unlikely to forget him given his ebullient personality and abundant energy.

Ruggieri is hopeful those who patronize his most recent restaurant venture, Speck Pizza + Street Food, slated to open Sept. 1 in Scout Hall at 430 Broadway in Cape Girardeau, won't soon forget the experience either.

Ruggieri, who came to the U.S. at age of 26 in 2010, graduated with a degree in marketing management in Milan, Italy.

The owner traces his roots, however, to Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with five million inhabitants.

Sicily's capital, Palermo, is rarely far from Ruggieri's mind.

"My journey started in Palermo, where even as a child, I had a strong passion for cooking. I was always the first to help my mother Rita and my father in the kitchen after Sunday morning mass," Ruggieri explains on the website of his current downtown Cape Girardeau eatery, Gabriel's Food and Wine.

"Growing up my best moments were when my dad Salvatore used to take me to discover different restaurants around Italy. He always wanted to find a better culinary adventure. This passion led him to travel the world, researching for superior food ingredients to reflect his style, distinctive flavors, and exclusivity providing for his family and friends an outstanding culinary adventure," he said.

Gabriel's Food and Wine, 127 N. Main St., is a gourmet fine dining Italian restaurant.

Speck, a 3,750-square-foot eatery, by contrast to Gabriel's, will offer what Ruggieri refers to as Italian street food, including pizza.

"Street food is very family oriented; it's not expensive and everybody can afford it. It's the kind of food that will make you happy."

Ruggieri drew on his marketing background in choosing the name of his new fast casual restaurant.

"Speck is an Italian word that Americans can say really quick. Everybody likes it; it sounds different; it's unique," said Ruggieri, noting his late father, who died when Gabriele was 18, is a continuing inspiration for his work as a restaurateur.

"(Dad) was a postal worker, liked to cook and worked some as maitre d' in restaurants himself," he recalled.

Speck's wood-fired oven, with parts shipped from Italy and assembled in California, will be a centerpiece of the eatery's operation.Submitted

Travels

Ruggieri has seen quite a bit of the world in building his culinary pedigree, living in Australia, Egypt, Turkey and Morocco, as well as his native Italy.

Eventually, Ruggieri's travels brought him to the United States, working for Four Seasons restaurant in St. Louis and in Italy's World Showcase eatery at Epcot Center in Orlando, Florida.

"I met a Casey Bauer from Cape Girardeau at Epcot. We fell in love and moved here. We have a son, Lorenzo Lewis Ruggieri, who's now 6," he explained.

Speck Pizza + Street Food, an Italian street food restaurant, is in Scout Hall at 430 Broadway in downtown Cape Girardeau. The eatery is expected to open Sept. 1.Submitted

Notes

One special feature of Speck Pizza + Street Food is a 4,000-lb. Valoriani oven.

"The individual parts of the wood-fired oven come from Italy, but they were shipped to Mugnaini Imports in Sonoma County, California, where everything was put together," Ruggieri said.

"Everyone will be able to see the fire going all day long. It's going to be a really unique concept. Speck is going to be very industrial looking, very trendy, with a color scheme in different shades of gray."

Ruggieri indicated his passion to teach, which already goes on at his North Main Street location, will also be in evidence at Speck.

"We'll have a pizza school starting next year with people learning how to make fresh pizza. It's going to be great," he said.

You can read more about Speck Pizza + Street Food at www.facebook.com/speckpizza.

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