Our Story
Fifteen years in Italy. Decades in Asia. A detour to Sarasota that never ended.
A Life Lived Elsewhere
Tom spent most of his adult life outside the United States — around fifteen years in Italy, and another twenty-five or so across different parts of Asia. Hoa was with him through most of it. Wherever they landed, food was at the center of how they lived: local markets, home cooking, the particular restaurants that became regulars. Not as a hobby. As a way of being.
Fifteen years in Italy is long enough to stop being a guest. You learn what good pizza actually tastes like from the inside. You develop opinions about dough. You notice what’s missing when you eat pizza somewhere else.
When their path eventually brought them back to the U.S., those years didn’t disappear. They became the standard everything else would be measured against.
The Detour That Wasn’t
The move to Sarasota was not planned. A detour from Miami to Tampa turned into a longer stay, and then into something permanent. The city had a quality of life they weren’t expecting. They decided to stop moving.
Settling down meant figuring out what came next. They knew food. They knew Italy. They knew exactly what Roman pizza was supposed to taste like and exactly how far most American versions fell short of it. That gap felt like an opening.
But knowing the food and making it properly are two different things. Rather than assume that fifteen years in Italy was enough, they went back to school: proper training under master Roman pizza makers. They wanted to do it right or not at all.
“It did not matter which rock we were living under in the world. Good fresh food has always been an integral part of our family life.”
The Pizza
Three things make a RomanSQ pizza what it is. None of them are shortcuts.
96-Hour Dough
Three ingredients: flour, yeast, water. Ninety-six hours of fermentation develops an open crumb, complex flavor, and a lightness that makes it more digestible than most pizza you’ll find. Why 96 hours? That is when it reaches its peak. Not before, not after.
Castelli Hearth
Roman pizza bakes lower and slower than Neapolitan. The Castelli double deck oven was chosen specifically for this: it manages both decks with precision, giving consistent results across every bake. The combination of the right dough, the right ingredients, and the right oven is what produces a RomanSQ square.
From Scratch
The toppings are built the way they were built in the Italian kitchens Tom and Hoa knew: ingredients prepared fresh each week, from whole things. Grilled sweet peppers charred in-house. Basil grown on-site, picked before each service. Every sauce made fresh. Nothing from a jar.
The 96-Hour Dough
The dough is where everything starts and where everything can go wrong. Water pH matters. The filtration system matters. The ratio of flour to hydration matters. Every variable is controlled because the dough is the foundation.
Roman pizza dough is not Neapolitan dough. It’s designed to be thicker, airier, and more structurally sound so it can hold toppings without collapsing. After fifteen years eating it in Italy, Tom knew this. After training with masters, he knew how to make it.
Hours of fermentation
Additives or sugars
Ingredients: flour, yeast, water
“Authentic pizza has no surname. Its one purpose in being is to be enjoyed fresh and made from the freshest ingredients available.”Hoa & Tom Donatelli, RomanSQ