Screenshot via Instagram/@yumyummchan/
Audio By Carbonatix
Miami’s pizza scene is on fire lately. With openings by world-famous pizzaiolos and award-winning spots, there are so many incredible pizzerias to choose from. And now, Miami is getting a first-of-its-kind.
Royale Pizza Napoletana is opening this October at 1680 Meridian Ave. in Miami Beach. It will be Florida’s first-ever Tokyo-style Neapolitan pizza, made by the Tokyo pizzaiolo who helped define the style.
The restaurant is the latest from Jess Varughese, the banking entrepreneur behind Haiku, the members-only restaurant in Wynwood. If the address seems familiar, it should. It was last home to Harry’s Pizzeria, Michael Schwartz’s Miami Beach spot near Lincoln Road, which has since closed. But Royale is moving in with a very different pie.
The pizzaiolo behind Tokyo’s viral pizza
The pull here is chef Bun (Bungo Kaneko), a pizzaiolo at Savoy in Tokyo, whose long-fermented, feather-light pies have made him something of a legend among traveling pizza obsessives. Varughese calls landing him the reason the whole thing works.
Savoy is a fitting place to poach from. It is where Tokyo-style pizza started, when Susumu Kakinuma opened it in 1995 after a year spent studying the craft in Naples, then went on to train the generation of pizzaioli who carried the style forward, according to Food & Wine.
If you have never had a Tokyo-style pie, it looks, at a glance, like a standard Neapolitan one, but the texture is the tell.
Screenshot via Instagram/@savoytomatotocheese
What makes it so different?
The cornicione puffs up thick and airy, blistered with charred bubbles and carrying a faint note of wood smoke, while the bottom stays thin and the center holds together instead of going soupy. It comes from a proprietary flour blend and a long, cold ferment.
The style spread from Tokyo to Los Angeles, New York, and Nashville. Then, this past February, two Tokyo pizzaiolos drew sold-out crowds to pop-ups in Manhattan. Royale is betting that Miami is the next stop and is billing itself as the first of its kind in South Florida.
Varughese got the idea two years ago, after a Haiku member and Savoy devotee told him he had to try it. He flew to Japan with his executive chef, ate at Savoy, and came home sold. “He’s the maestro behind the music,” Varughese says of Bun in the announcement. “It’s like having Jack Nicklaus join your foursome or Miles Davis join your quartet.”
Photo by Boone Studios
The masterful talent behind the menu
Executive chef Albert Diaz, who runs Haiku’s kitchen after stints at Zuma London and Zuma Miami, is in charge. So is pizzaiola Dalila Sabatino, who trained under Bun and later worked under William Joo at LA’s Pizzeria Sei, another big name in the Tokyo-style movement. Bun called her “one of the most talented pizzaiolas I have ever worked with.” Oscar Coll, a 20-year hospitality veteran, runs operations, and Audrey Armada, most recently head of membership experiences at Haiku, leads customer experience.
Royale will keep it fast-casual. The dining room seats 65 around a large communal table; no reservations are taken; walk-ins are seated on a first-come, first-served basis. Guests order at a counter from a short menu of antipasti, seven pizzas (four traditional, three specials), two pastas, and two mains. Takeout and delivery will also be available at opening.
“The dough is everything,” Varughese said. Getting it right took 20 years of work in Tokyo and hundreds of hours in Miami, from choosing the flour blend and using the autolyze technique to softening the local water to match Japan’s and dialing in the bulk and cold fermentation. The pies ferment for more than 30 hours and come out of an 800-degree oven light and blistered.
The Tokyo-style pizzeria will open in October 2026 if all goes to plan.
Royale Pizza Napoletana. 1680 Meridian Ave., Miami Beach; @royalenapoletana. Opening October 2026.
