By the time most people were figuring out sourdough starters, Giancarlo Truppi was chasing something hotter.
During the early months of the pandemic, Truppi, founder, CEO and pizzaiolo—the Italian term for a professional pizza maker—at Và Fa Napoli Pizza, and his family leaned into a ritual they’d practiced for years at home in Annandale: making pizza. An Ooni oven becomes the spark. Once or twice a week, they test dough, learn heat, tweak timing and invite friends and family, safely and outdoors, into what quickly becomes the most popular “social distancing” hangout on the calendar.
“It turned into this thing everyone wanted to come back for,” Truppi says. “We’d make pizza, and people kept saying, ‘You should sell this.’”
Four years later, that backyard obsession has grown into Và Fa Napoli Pizza, a catering-first business based out of a commercial kitchen in Frenchtown that brings a full “pizzeria on wheels” to weddings, birthdays, graduations and backyard parties across New Jersey and beyond. Their calling card is a wood-fired, dome-style Neapolitan oven mounted on a trailer—the kind of setup that turns dinner into a show.
You don’t just taste it. You feel it.
When Và Fa Napoli pulls up, the air changes: crackling wood, the quick blur of flour-dusted hands, the smell of blistered dough and bubbling mozzarella. Guests gather around the oven the way they would around a fire pit, watching pies launch and land in minutes.
“We want it to be an experience,” Truppi says. “The sight and smell of real wood-fired pizza, that’s the ambiance.”
A name with meaning
The name Và Fa Napoli Pizza is intentional, and layered with history.
Literally translated, the phrase means ‘go to Naples.’ Over time, it became a dismissive slang expression, rooted in a period when Naples was unfairly portrayed as dirty or dangerous. Pop culture has repeated it for
decades, from sitcom punchlines to mob dramas, often using it as a sharp brush-off.
Truppi wanted to reclaim it.
“Naples is beautiful,” he says. “It’s the land of love, music, culture, art, the bay of Napoli, Mount Vesuvius and it’s the birthplace of pizza. We want people to taste that in every bite.”
That philosophy—honoring heritage while rewriting the narrative runs through every part of the business.
From hobby to hustle
The leap from passion project to profession came naturally, fueled by steady demand. Friends came over, told other friends, and soon the requests weren’t casual, they were consistent.
At the time, Truppi was working alongside Chef Keith Taylor in Pennsylvania, a relationship he describes as mentorship. The experience deepened his love for cooking and sharpened his understanding of what it takes to run a food business.
In 2022, the family bought a used trailer online from a seller in Detroit. The timing is etched into their story: The trailer arrived on Mother’s Day weekend. By June, Và Fa Napoli Pizza was officially in business.
That family detail matters, because this business is truly multigenerational.
Roots in Naples, built in New Jersey
The Truppi family’s connection to food traces back well before the pandemic, or even the U.S.
In 1969, Pasquale Truppi left his hometown of Airola, Italy, to create a better life for his growing family. Raised in a family tomato business, Pasquale understood the value of fresh ingredients. His wife, Civita, cooked everything from scratch. Leaving Italy, and his wife and four young children was not easy.
Pasquale arrived in New York, first working in a factory before taking a job at a pizzeria in Raritan, where the family eventually settled. In 1971, they were reunited, and New Jersey became home.
Their son, Carlo Mariano Truppi, was born in Naples and raised in a household where family and food were inseparable. Like many children of Italian immigrants, Carlo and his siblings learned to cook young, helping prepare meals while their parents worked long hours in pursuit of the American dream.
Civita made homemade pizza in the family’s kitchen oven—simple, soulful and reminiscent of Naples. Carlo absorbed those traditions, learning recipes and techniques from his parents and his grandfather, Natale Poccia, affectionately known as Nonno. Visits to Italy exposed the family to the iconic Neapolitan ovens that still define restaurants across Naples today.
Those memories now live on in Giancarlo’s work.
Craft, not shortcuts
Và Fa Napoli specializes in traditional Neapolitan-style pizza—thin, airy crust, blistered char and simple toppings, with a subtle American adjustment to suit event crowds.
“We want to avoid the wateriness you sometimes get with very fresh mozzarella in Italy,” Truppi says. “It’s about balance.”
The foundation is precision. The dough is made with imported double zero flour, mixed slowly in a spiral mixer with water added gradually to build gluten strength. It’s fermented for a lighter, more digestible crust. The sauce is uncooked, made with imported San Marzano tomatoes from the Campania region near Naples, where volcanic soil lends a distinct sweetness and depth.
For cheese, Truppi turns local. Và Fa Napoli proudly uses mozzarella from Lebanon Cheese Factory, a longtime New Jersey business that supported the brand early on.
“They believed in us from the start,” he says. “And it’s incredible cheese.”
A family operation
Behind the oven, Giancarlo leads. Behind the scenes, the family keeps everything moving.
His mother, Faith, manages bookings and scheduling, handling the steady stream of inquiries that often come months after guests experience the pizza at another party.
“She’s the reason we can do what we do,” Truppi says. “She keeps it all together.”
His father, Carlo, continues to support the business creatively and operationally—often serving as the sounding board for new ideas and seasonal pies.
Growing with intention
Ask Truppi how Và Fa Napoli markets itself, and he won’t mention algorithms.
Most bookings come through word of mouth—guests who attend one event and later decide they want that same experience.
“It’s the long game,” he says. “People remember how it made them feel.”
Looking ahead, Và Fa Napoli plans to open its first physical storefront within the next year, with leasing conversations already underway. A permanent location would allow the public to enjoy the pizza more regularly and give the team space to experiment and grow. They’re also exploring the addition of a second, more traditional food trailer to expand into festivals and fairs.
For now, though, the heart of Và Fa Napoli remains exactly where it started: outside, surrounded by people, with wood smoke in the air and a pizza passed hand to hand.
Because for Giancarlo Truppi, pizza has never just been about food.
It’s always been about family and the fire that brings people together.
For more information visit vafanapolipizza.com.
“People remember how it made them feel.”
—Giancarlo Truppi
“We’d make pizza, and people kept saying, ‘You should sell this.’”
—Giancarlo Truppi