Mani in Pasta is the name. Translation: “hands in the dough,” and that is exactly where Giuseppe Manco’s mitts have been most of his 31 years. Manco is the pizzaiolo-chef and co-owner of this five-month-old East Village pizza restaurant, and his dough-making credentials are pretty impressive.

The Neapolitan expat got started early at the family-run trattoria in Naples, where under the tutelage of assorted aunts and uncles he made his first Margherita D.O.C., pulling it out of the wood-fired oven — presumably with the aid of a stepladder — at the ripe old age of 6.