The Annex Kitchen owners are planning a new restaurant in Fresno. Here are all the details
.JPG "Jimmy Pardini, right, with father Jim Pardini, center, and brother Jeff, are opening a pizza restaurant called Annesso Pizzeria. The family is pictured at The Annex Kitchen in this file photo from 2015.")
The people behind popular Fresno restaurant The Annex Kitchen are planning to open a new eatery.
It’s not a second location, but a pizza restaurant. It will be called Annesso Pizzeria. Annesso is the Italian word for annex.
It will open in Park Crossing, the shopping center at Friant Road and Fresno Street that’s also home to Trader Joe’s. It will be near the building that houses Butterfish restaurant, next to Magic Lamp Mediterranean Grill.
It’s not open yet, but the owners hope to open at the end of May or in early June, said chef Jimmy Pardini, part of the Pardini family that runs several food businesses in town.
The food and drinks
Annesso Pizzeria is not your typical pizza joint.
It will be a full-service, sit-down restaurant with a full bar. Including a patio, it can seat 200 people.
Its bar will be bigger than the one at The Annex Kitchen and will serve the same type of cocktails. Annex has an extensive and creative cocktail menu.
Annesso Pizzeria will have a similar wine list too.
“It’s going to be casual. It’s going to be family friendly, family-style oriented,” Pardini said.
Pizza won’t be the only thing on the menu. There will be appetizers, some meat entrees and seasonal vegetable dishes similar to what Annex carries.
The 12-inch pizzas will have red sauce, white sauce and “and everything in between,” he said.
It won’t be the same pizzas you find at Annex made in its big brick pizza oven. They plan to be more playful with the toppings, for example.
“We might take the concept of an American pizza and do our take on it,” he said. “It’s going to be a little more eclectic.”
Expect the crust to be a cross between the light, airy artisan crust in an Italian pizza and the crispy crust of a New York pizza, Pardini said.
This story was originally published March 26, 2021 at 4:53 PM.
