At Ozzy’s in Watsonville, an inventive menu from former Pizza My Heart chef

Enter Ozzy’s Pizzeria, a new restaurant that opened last spring in the corner of a shopping center in Watsonville, and you’ll immediately notice three things: the earthy aroma of wood smoke, the motorcycles hanging from the ceiling and “Pizza is Life” blazing in neon over the restaurant’s open kitchen. 

Taken together, that’s owner Tim Silva in a nutshell: an artisan pizza maker and adventure sport enthusiast who has spent his entire adult life immersed in the intermarriage of dough, toppings and cheese. At Ozzy’s, his first solo project, Silva is putting his personal culinary perspective in the spotlight, with unusual – but expertly crafted – pizzas inspired by his family, local farms and life experiences. 

The top of Ozzy’s menu of Neapolitan-style pies starts off in familiar territory with a margherita and a pepperoni, but as your eye drifts down things quickly take a more adventurous route, with bold combinations like filet mignon, roasted mushrooms and cream (Zoe, $28); meatballs, roasted onion and shaved Parmesan (Dantini, $23); or Castelvetrano olives, roasted mushrooms and marinated artichoke hearts (Shannon’s Veggie, $24). Even the Arnone ($23), topped with pillowy ricotta and fistfuls of arugula bound in a lemony vinaigrette and finished with fresh nasturtiums, stands out from other pizza insalatas by being the prettiest one you’ve ever eaten. 

The Ozzy’s Mama ($23) – honoring his daughter, mother to the restaurant’s namesake, Silva’s 1-year-old grandson, Ozzy – is topped with Italian sausage, olive oil and Parmesan, and finished with dollops of cool, oozing stracciatella cheese, generous spoonfuls of spicy-sweet habanero jelly and wisps of orange zest. The orange aroma adds a romantic edge to the satisfying marriage of sweet jelly, mild cheese and salty sausage.

His pizza creations are all about balance, said Silva. “The idea is to have something rich and something acidic to cut through that; the sweet and savory and spicy balancing out five or six things, and then on top of that, trying to make it look pretty,” he said.

As the first slice is lifted from the tray, it’s amazing that a pizza that thin can support anything beyond the slimmest swipe of tomato sauce. But Silva allows his naturally leavened dough to develop structure and flavor through a long cold fermentation over two to four days, which gives the crust a deep chew, pleasant crunch and noticeable tang. 

Silva rounds out his menu with spins on comforting classics that are far from mundane, including tender meatballs in tomato sauce ($12) that are begging to be smothered in cheese and put between a baguette ( $17), a Caprese-style heirloom tomato salad ($19) and Caesar salad ($14).

Opening his own restaurant wasn’t always the plan. In the early 1990s, Silva’s life was forever changed when two guys wandered into the taqueria he worked at and accidentally spilled a $32 pitcher of margaritas. Silva, then an aspiring real estate agent and new father working at the restaurant to make ends meet, gave them a replacement for free. The two men, Chuck Hammers and Michael Rose, owned the San Jose-based chain Pizza-a-Go-Go, and were impressed by his hospitality. They offered him a job as a manager. 

Silva took it, planning to quit once his real estate business took off, but discovered that, as he put it, “It was fun. Like, really fun.” 

“I never went back. I just stayed with them for the next 35 years,” said Silva. A few years after joining it, the company merged with Capitola-based Pizza My Heart, and he helped grow it to more than 30 locations throughout the Bay Area, eventually becoming a part-owner.

Over the years, Silva filtered through different roles, from executive chef to regional manager. He regularly represented Pizza My Heart at international pizza competitions such as the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas, where he worked with a team to create winning flavor combinations. Silva has taken home multiple titles and won Pizza Maker of the Year in 2015. 

More recently, he was inspired by other Pizza My Heart alums who went on to establish their own restaurants, including Leah Scurto of PizzaLeah in Windsor and Lars Smith of State of Mind Slice House in Palo Alto. Silva started to consider opening a place of his own. 

“The relationships I had with Chuck and the other partners were fantastic,” he said. “I just felt like I wanted something less like an administrative job, and to be back in the kitchen, and tapping into that creative part of it.” 

To Silva, pizza is more than a career, and at Ozzy’s, he gets to make pizza his way. “It’s a passion. It’s not a job,” he said. “Putting all the flavors together, the ‘stoke’ I get from exceeding people’s expectations, that really resonates with me.”

1036 E Lake Ave., Watsonville; 831-319-4464. ozzyspizzeria.com. 

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