From gridiron to gastronomy

He had called plays in a huddle, coached college football players and traveled across the country for games, but Brad Otton, a former USC quarterback and Rose Bowl standout longed to create something of his own.

So he swapped tossing pigskin for tossing pizza dough.

And he was ready for his restaurant, Settebello Pizzeria Napoletana, to be the star.

“It was a great profession, but I had a young family and I really wanted to start a business,” Otton, 44, said by phone in his hometown of Santa Clarita.

He found his answer when he reflected on his two-year religious mission in the early 1990s in southern Italy, where he developed a love for the Neapolitan-style, thin-crust pizza of the Naples region.

Otton opened the artisan pizzeria in Henderson, Nev., in 2005 and in Salt Lake City two years later.

He’s been a hit with critics and successful enough to run a total of eight locations — two in Utah, two in Nevada and four in Southern California.

But he designed his 2-year-old Newport Beach restaurant, in the Crystal Cove Shopping Center, to be the most unique, he said, with olive trees adorning an open-ceiling interior.

The location also features a large bar and a menu offering authentic and artisanal cuisine inspired by Naples’ culinary traditions.

Since Napoli, Italy, is considered the birthplace of pizza, Otton wanted to ensure that Settebello’s pizza-making process followed the Napoli guidelines created more than 200 years ago.

The restaurant is one of the first Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana-certified Italian restaurants in the U.S., meaning that Settebello has been granted the seal of approval from the Naples-based nonprofit for its traditional cooking methods and exacting standards.

Otton purchased specialty equipment for his restaurant, including a dome-shaped, wood-burning oven, and stocks certain ingredients, including a flour that the association’s guidelines describe as having “an almost talcum powder-like appearance.”

The haute pizza at Settebello’s is left to the skilled hands of pizza chef Alex Moody, who has been expertly trained to sculpt the pies from dough and cook them at a blazingly high temperature in the Italian-designed oven.

Moody, 27, started at the pizza chain in Salt Lake City as a dishwasher. He worked his way up, from scrubbing plates at night to prepping salads in the morning. A few months later, Moody was trained to make pizzas.

Two years later, he became the head pizzaiolo.

He estimates that he has made half a million pizzas in his nearly five years of pizza-making.

Moody admits that he pays obsessive attention to cutting the dough and baking the pies.

No batch of dough is the same, he said.

To make the pizza dough, Moody first feels the flour and determines the level of humidity, since flour absorbs or sheds moisture. Once he factors in the variables, he’ll start creating it around 9 a.m. and hope to have cut all the dough mounds by 9 p.m., since they will need hours of refrigeration before being made into pizza the next day.

To make a pizza, he will sculpt a dough mound, stretching it to 10 to 12 inches in diameter and adding the edging.

“You want it to be the perfect shape that’s between a pancake and a hamburger,” Moody said.

The fewer the toppings, the better, Moody said, because the light dough can’t hold a dense weight.

Then comes the baking: One minute and 17 seconds is all it takes, he said.

The chain’s take on the Margherita pizza remains a favorite. It should be eaten within two to three minutes, though, since the thin pizza turns cold fast, Moody said.

“It should smell slightly sweet and have a leopard-print crust,” said Moody, who has been influenced by Don Antonio, a well-established Neapolitan pizza restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.

But Settebello doesn’t just offer hand-tossed pizzas, Otton said, noting the house-made meatballs, crostinis, salmon focaccia and variety of cheeses, among other selections.

He said he enjoys educating first-time guests on the cuisine of Naples, explaining there is something for every taste.

He feels as though Settebello is in the shadow of nearby Javier’s and Mastro’s but hopes to educate more first-time guests on the cuisine of Naples and its appeal to a range of tastes.

“All those things I learned in coaching apply to the restaurant industry. because it’s very competitive and you got to fight and have your vision,” Otton said. “I learned not to give up and focus on what you want to do.”

The namesake of the restaurant is said to bring good luck. It’s the Settebello card from “a popular card game in Italy called scopa, and it means ‘beautiful seven,’ ” Otton said. “It’s the kind of card to help you win the game.”

Settebello is at 7864 E. Coast Hwy., Newport Beach. For more information, visit settebello.net.