monkroom2.jpg

The 14 1/2 pizza at The Monk Room.

(Alex Remnick/The Star-Ledger)

A restaurant with a holier-than-most name located next to a bail bondsman and across from City Hall in the state's largest city.

Welcome to Newark, The Monk Room.

"We were attracted to Newark, and it was attracted to us,'' said Mark Hinchliffe, a junior partner in Smith.

Smith is the name of the company that owns The Monk Room, plus Porta; Brickwall Tavern and Dining Room; Pascal & Sabine, and Goldie's in Asbury Park. The unconventionally-named firm describes itself as a "collective of leading creators, movers and thinkers transforming great American cities through the audacity of hospitality.''

The message sounds like a combination of hip and haughty, but the mission at the Monk Room is clear: bring the Neapolitan-style pizza that has made Porta a success to Newark.

The state's biggest city was a natural since Newark, like Asbury Park, is "a historic amazing city that's starting to have a revival,'' according to Hinchliffe.

There are no monks, or priests or nuns for that matter, involved with the Monk Room; the name takes its inspiration from a Latin proverb, written by a monk, that is used as a Porta slogan.

A pasta dish at The Monk Room.

Ignore the bail bondsman next door and walk into the Monk Room's cozy brick-walled interior. I really wish waitstaff wouldn't try to remember a sizable order without writing it down; it's a gesture that never fails to unimpress, and indeed the waitress who took my order missed an item.

And my three pizzas sat on the bar while the rest of the order was being filled, and we know what cardboard or the like does to pizza.

I'll stop being cranky; the pizzas survived, and the rest of the food was pretty much first-rate. I'll give immediate pizza points to The Monk Room for the absence of pepperoni on any of its pizzas; the world's most popular pizza topping is also its most boring and predictable.

Go instead, for the 14 1/2 pizza ($16), topped by a hot sopressata that may make you swear off pepperoni forever. Add Calabrian chiles, San Marzano tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, homemade ricotta, oregano and extra virgin olive oil, and you have a praiseworthy pizza.

The margherita pizza ($12) is not far behind, and the Nutella pizza ($10) received a thumbs-up from the colleagues who pressured me into ordering it.

Pizzas are cooked in a brick-and-concrete oven similar to the one at Porta, although by a different manufacturer.

Olives and fresh mozzarella are perfect together at The Monk Room.

Don't sleep on the sandwiches here; the meatball ($10), with roasted long hot peppers, fresh mozzarella and pecorino romano, is good enough, but the tuna sandwich ($10), with Italian canned tuna, arugula, fennel, lemon and capers, will undoubtedly rank among the year's best sandwiches.

And the tart ($8), with mascarpone, persimmon marmalade, peanut nut brittle and a chaser of cranberry sorbet - is a keeper.

Other menu items include a carbonara pizza ($13), with guanciale, parmigiano reggiano, roasted egg, parsley, black pepper and extra virgin olive oil; Sasquash ($8), a salad with roasted delicata squash, winter greens, farro, toasted pumpkin seeds and brown butter vinaigrette); and a maple budino ($8), with salted rosemary caramel, creme fraiche and toasted hazelnuts.

Smith will open a Porta in Jersey City around the Memorial Day weekend, and Hinchliffe said more Monk Rooms are "definitely a possibility'' in the future.

Breakfast - pizza fritta, high-end egg sandwiches and focaccina, the restaurant's take on classic Italian pastry, will likely be offered in the warmer months.

Smith has also bought buildings in Burlington City that it intends to convert into restaurants, and several of the firm's partners have bought homes in the historic town.

But that's another story.

"We're always attracted to places that other people write off,'' Hinchliffe said.

FOLLOW PETE GENOVESE: TWITTER •

FOLLOW MUNCHMOBILE: TWITTER