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The dinner companion is gripped by euphoria. He moans. "I am so happy right now," he says. He's just had his first bite of a "Marilyn" pizza from Dola Pizzeria Napoletana, the latest restaurant concoction from 20 Railroad Public House partners Benjamin Downing and Laura Shack, who is also the culinary brains behind Firefly in Lenox.

But Dola, which opened two weeks ago, is Downing's baby. For two years he tinkered with dough, experimenting to perfect Neapolitan-style pizza, a specialty of Naples, Italy, the original "birthplace of pizza as we know it today," he said.