Anthony Mangieri is one of those rare sorts of the restaurant world known for devoting his life to a single noble pursuit: In his case, making the best pizza he can from the best ingredients he can get. He has chased this seemingly simple but elusive goal since 1996, when he opened his first pizzeria in his native New Jersey, followed by ever more prominent stints in Manhattan’s East Village and San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood.

After having come to some realizations about himself and the Bay Area, Mangieri has returned to New York, where next week he opens the newest iteration of Una Pizza Napoletana on the Lower East Side. “I just never fit in in a way that I felt like it was my home,” says Mangieri of San Francisco, even though his sojourn allowed him to indulge his second passion in life, mountain biking.