The Starland District ended the summer with the same pizza restaurants it started with, plus one more. They just serve different pizza now. Pizzeria Vittoria at Starland Yard was the place in Savannah for Neapolitan pizza. It now makes 18-inch New York-style pies and sells slices. Its Neapolitan pies moved down Bull Street to its sister restaurant, Lucia Pasta Bar. In September, the team behind Late Air opened Specials Pizza on De Soto Avenue, a second New York-style spot.
Taken together, these changes add up to a sorting. Each pizza style now has its own address. Picking a place for dinner around the south end of Bull Street now starts with which kind of pie you want and how you want to eat it.
The Pizzeria That Set the Bar Changed Its Pie
Chef Kyle Jacovino opened Pizzeria Vittoria about seven years ago as Savannah's first naturally leavened Neapolitan pizzeria, according to the Savannah Morning News. Jesse Blanco of Eat It & Like It wrote that Food & Wine had named it the best pizza in Georgia. He called it "the standard everyone else in town gets measured against."
Blanco reported in late July that the change would be a full rebuild. Vittoria closed from July 31 through the end of August for a new deck oven, a reworked kitchen and an entirely new menu. The restaurant came back with 18-inch New York-style pies, pizza by the slice, and the meatball grinders that had been off the menu. By mid-September, the Savannah Morning News reported that the switch had happened.
The dough is the part that didn't change. Vittoria's own website now calls it a New York-inspired pizzeria. It still uses naturally leavened dough, which it ferments for up to 48 hours. The process is the same. The final shape is foldable and sized for slices. Blanco described the style Savannah had been asking for as "big enough that one piece is basically a meal."
Why the Neapolitan Pies Moved to Lucia
Vittoria was free to change partly because Jacovino already had a second kitchen nearby. Lucia Pasta Bar at 2425 Bull Street opened in late August 2025. Blanco described it as years in the making. In his July piece, he said he had been wondering how Jacovino would handle pizza at Starland Yard while making the same pies "around the corner" at Lucia. "That's a lot of pizza in a small radius," he wrote.
The answer was to split the styles between the two restaurants. Blanco reported that Lucia had "quietly become the new home" for the naturally leavened Neapolitan lineup over the past year. Lucia's current menu lists a Corn Pie at $20, a Diavola at $20 and a Mortadella Pie at $21. The menu notes that offerings change with the seasons.
Lucia is a different kind of night out than a slice counter. Its reservation page on Tock says reservations are recommended but not required for the dining room, the Pasta Bar and the Pasta Room. The cocktail bar takes walk-ins. In Starland, Neapolitan pizza now comes as part of a sit-down dinner, with pasta on the same menu.
A Second Slice Counter Opened in September
Specials Pizza opened in September at 2520 De Soto Ave. Bill Dawers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution described its location as a quiet side street along the Bull Street corridor just north of Victory Drive. It comes from the team behind Late Air, the wine bar and cafe at 2805 Bull Street.
Dawers reported that Specials serves whole pies and slices, plus a chopped salad, calzones, meatballs and other plates. The menu has four specialty pizzas, one of them topped with mushroom, garlic and crème fraîche. The Savannah Morning News added that it serves cocktails, beer and zero-proof drinks. Music directors and resident DJs Zac Benton and Hunter Condron play records while people eat. The paper quoted Specials' website, which describes the mood as "no fuss, no pretense – just good music, good people, and great pizza."
That makes two New York-style slice spots in the district, each in its own setting. At Vittoria, the slice comes from a food park. Starland Yard's own site describes a full bar, three built-in restaurants and rotating food trucks. At Specials, the slice comes from a pizzeria with its own bar and a record playing.
How the Map Looks Now
| Style | Where | Setting | What's on the menu |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York-style, naturally leavened | Pizzeria Vittoria, Starland Yard | Food park with a full bar and other restaurants | 18-inch pies, slices, meatball grinders |
| Neapolitan, naturally leavened | Lucia Pasta Bar, 2425 Bull St. | Sit-down dining room with reservations recommended, plus a walk-in cocktail bar | Seasonal pies such as Corn, Diavola and Mortadella, alongside pasta |
| New York-style | Specials Pizza, 2520 De Soto Ave. | Pizzeria and bar with resident DJs | Slices, whole pies, four specialty pizzas, calzones, meatballs |
Until this summer, Neapolitan pizza in Starland meant Vittoria, and a slice meant going somewhere else. Now the district covers both styles without the restaurants competing for the same dinner.
Ice Cream on Bull Street After Dark
The newest stop on this stretch of Bull Street isn't pizza. Leopold's Ice Cream officially opened its Starland shop on Oct. 2 at 2400 Bull St., Suite 4, with a ribbon cutting covered in the Savannah Area Chamber's weekly recap. Three brothers from Greece founded Leopold's in Savannah in 1919, WTOC reported. The company described the new shop as bringing its recipes to the city's "residential and creative corridor."
The hours make the Starland shop a night stop. According to Leopold's shop listings, it opens at 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday and stays open until 10 p.m. On Friday and Saturday it runs from noon to 11 p.m., and on Sunday from noon to 9 p.m. The 212 E. Broughton St. flagship closes at 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and at 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. That means the Starland shop stays open an hour later than Broughton every day except Sunday, when both close at 9 p.m.
Leopold's shares its building with The Larrikin Coffee Bar and Cafe in Suite 6, which took over the former Garden Square space. The Savannah Morning News reported that the cafe, led by Chef Michael Toscano, opens at 7 a.m. Monday through Saturday and runs until 9 p.m. It serves coffee and breakfast all day and turns into a cocktail bar at night. Between the two tenants, 2400 Bull is open from morning coffee until the last scoop on a Saturday night.
On the Starland Calendar in Early November
Two more events are already scheduled, both listed by the Savannah Area Chamber:
- Thursday, Nov. 5, 11 a.m. Maizal holds its ribbon cutting at 2018 Habersham St., at the corner of Habersham and East 37th. The Chamber calls it Savannah's first and only gluten-free café. It's a Colombian café and event space from Big Bon Bodega partners Kay Heritage and Shahin Afsharian, built around a concept from chef Marisol Borrego, who is from Bogotá. The menu will include arepas, Colombian-inspired bowls, handmade pastries and locally roasted Colombian coffee.
- Friday, Nov. 6, 4 to 7 p.m. The Starland Soul Mural Fest ribbon cutting takes place at Starland Village, 2213 Bull St., at 4:30 p.m. Local artists are invited to paint murals on the new residential community. The developer hopes the competition becomes an annual tradition.
Maizal will add another kind of food on the Habersham side of the district. The mural fest is set for the evening of the first Friday in November.
If you're thinking about how close you'd like to live to Vittoria, Lucia, Specials and the new Leopold's, the McIntosh Realty Team knows the blocks around Starland well and is glad to talk through it with you. Contact Us.
