For the last two months, il Padrino has given PB a slice of the East Coast. The Italian restaurant and gourmet pizzeria opened on Hornblend Street in May. “It goes back to very old-school traditional Italian food, whether it’s the meatballs that are an old recipe from Italy or the ingredients in the pizza sauce which have been passed down for generations,” said owner Sam Calvanese. A Massachusetts native, Calvanese longed for an East Coast slice of pie while living in the area for the past few years. Finally, he and friend Sven Zabka, a New York native, decided to take matters into their own hands — and il Padrino was born. “We found that, generally speaking, San Diego has sub-par pizza,” Calvanese said. “After four years of eating pizza that we never really enjoyed, we thought ‘Why not go into business together and shake things up a little bit?’” The pizza at il Padrino starts with the ingredients, which have an East Coast flair. Pies are topped with homemade sauce and Grande cheese, a Wisconsin-based brand that Calvanese said is prevalent back east and exclusive to il Padrino in the Pacific Beach area. “It’s the highest quality cheese that is in the cheese market throughout the whole country,” Calvanese said. “You pay a premium for this cheese, but it cooks better, it melts better, it tastes better and it also reheats better when you reheat the pizza the next day or a few hours later.” Il Padrino offers many different types of pizza, from traditional pepperoni to the not-so-traditional. The latter pizzas include alfredo-style, chicken parmesan, buffalo chicken and a French-fry pizza with chili and cheddar cheese. “We have a very creative menu,” Calvanese said. “We have 30-plus signature pizzas that are different from your traditional East Coast red pizza.” Another unique pie at il Padrino is the nacho pizza with steak, chicken or hamburger and fajita pizza. Those pizzas are the focus of il Padrino’s “Taco Pizza Tuesdays,” with two-for-one slices and beers. “We’re trying to take away from Taco Tuesday and have people try a slice of taco pizza instead,” Calvanese said. Non-pizza menu items Calvanese recommends trying are the meatballs, made from an Italian family recipe. “It’s an old-school recipe from my grandmother who is from southern Italy, and the meatballs are all homemade here,” Calvanese said. “Everybody who has the meatball sandwich just falls in love with it.” As for the name, which means “The Godfather” in Italian, it actually has nothing to do with the legendary film series. Calvanese said he chose the name because it implies a sense of family and warmth, along with superiority when it comes to pizza. “It’s a very traditional, old-school word,” Calvanese said.