Sports Bar Italian Food
By Michael Mueller
Neapolitans run Sports Bar Italian Food on Ample in the Gòtic, where the bar has been open since at least 2011. Pizzaiolo Lelo works with a wood-fired oven, and football plays on screens in the brick-walled room. The team celebrated Napoli’s Serie A title on its social feed. This is the original branch of a group that describes its cooking as “from the heart of Naples.”
The pizza menu runs from Marinara and Margherita to burrata and mortadella with pistachio, with buffalo mozzarella available on the Margherita. For something more specifically Neapolitan, the Salsiccia e Friarielli combines sausage, smoked provola and friarielli greens. The house Sports Bar pizza takes ricotta all the way into the crust, then adds tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella. And the oven doesn’t get all the work: the Pizza Fritta Completa is fried, with ricotta and cicoli pork cracklings.
Pizza dough also becomes saltimbocca sandwiches, and the rest of the kitchen turns out starters, pasta and meat and fish mains. Bruschetta is among the starters and Zito al Ragù Napoletano among the pastas; dessert includes Pan di Stelle, followed by house limoncello or meloncello.
The group has since spread across Barcelona and out to Terrassa, Esplugues de Llobregat and Badalona, but Ample is where it began. The bar opens every day from 1pm to midnight.