Michael Scelfo is serious about pizza. After a childhood spent savoring New York's top slices (not to mention a habit of embarking on pizza pilgrimages in his adult years), the chef had visions of a roaring, wood-fired hearth taking center stage at his first solo restaurant, Alden & Harlow in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But when he started the business in the historic, semisubterranean Casablanca space in Harvard Square—one with little kitchen real estate—those dreams went up in smoke. 

So when planning his sophomore effort, Scelfo was determined to make amends. Named after the next leg in his gastronomic evolution, Waypoint opened last summer as a polestar of the chef's varied interests: the coastal cuisine he fell in love with after moving to Boston 17 years ago, the Italian-American sensibilities bestowed on him in his mother's kitchen, and, of course, that elusive pizza.