Charlotte has a pizza place at 86 Ferry Road once again. OOSA Kitchen + Market will open on Thursday, March 19, with Italian-inspired pies and sides highlighting ingredients from local farms. Charlotte residents Blake Hoberman and Hanna DeFuria will run the biz with help from their young daughters, Poppy and Tula.
“We’re showcasing Vermont using Italian tradition, with a little New York flair,” Hoberman said.
OOSA’s thin, crispy crusts are made with organic flour and natural leavening. Toppings are simple: The Cosacca (Cossack) features just tomato sauce, pecorino Romano cheese, basil and extra-virgin olive oil. The Ortolana (Gardener) has cherry tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini. Little meatballs called polpettine — featuring beef from Charlotte’s Grass Cattle Company — are available on a pizza or as a side, and other sides include an arugula salad, roasted vegetables and garlic knots.
Hoberman has worked in Vermont restaurants for two decades and has a background in farming and food sales, including operating Narwhal Pickles. He and DeFuria, an acupuncturist, ran a café inside REV’s indoor cycling studio in South Burlington from 2019 to 2020.
The couple have fully renovated the space once occupied by Stone’s Throw Pizza, which closed in September. OOSA will be takeout only, but customers can linger in a new lounge area in front of the now-open kitchen.
The other side of the shop will gradually become a curated market featuring organic and local specialty food products that “we’ve been eating forever in our family,” Hoberman said.
Those include pints of Strafford Organic Creamery ice cream, beer, wine, nonalcoholic beverages, chocolate and snacks, as well as grocery items such as cheese, eggs, milk and meat from nearby farms.
“Almost every ingredient is going to have a story,” Hoberman said.
The original print version of this article was headlined “OOSA Kitchen + Market Opens in Charlotte”
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