Grimaldi’s, Grimaldi’s, Grimaldi’s — around Tampa Bay, FL, that is all anyone hears about lately.

Grimaldi’s is a legendary Brooklyn, NY, pizzeria that over the last few years has expanded across the South and West, with operations based in Arizona and more than 30 locations in California, Texas, South Carolina and a half-dozen new stores in Florida - three of the most recent in Tampa Bay, thus leading to the talk on the streets.

A reporter from The Produce News listened to others rave for a month before finally visiting the Grimaldi’s location at Westshore Mall in downtown Tampa. The resulting experience proved that all the talk was not hype.

With a focus on fresh and a proprietary brick oven that cooks at over 1,000 degrees (and a specially formulated mozzarella cheese to match) Grimaldi’s has an approach to pizza that few can match. Add in a special water filtration system in each store to precisely mimic the composition of New York’s legendary water supply and the effect it has on dough-based products like pizza and bagels and it is a no-lose situation.

With produce provided by FreshPoint and other items - like a specially made dry-aged pepperoni from Hormel — of equally high quality, Grimaldi’s offers an upscale pizza experience. Even the sauce is made of San Marzano tomatoes imported from Italy and nothing but.

With a casually elegant interior — Sinatra and other classic crooners play in the background while vintage New York City photos adorn the walls, and the wine list has more than 50 entries designed to please neophytes to oenophiles — Grimaldi’s beckons visitors to linger a while.

And that is without even mentioning the cheesecake, which is made in-store each day.

Grimaldi’s limits menu options to focus on what it does best: pizza, calzones, appetizers like fresh bruschetta and antipasto, salads and cheesecake.

The oven is key. It is the centerpiece of every Grimaldi’s. A special team of expert masons is dispatched to each new location and builds the oven first — the rest of the restaurant is built around it. Pure-burning anthracite coal from Pennsylvania is the only fuel. The result is consistent temperature in an oven that can cook as many as 18 large pizzas in three minutes.

The intense heat means Grimaldi’s toppings have to be able to stand up — quality is paramount. The mozzarella is specially made to withstand higher temps; other cheeses would scorch, dissolve or turn into a puddle of goo.

The dry-aged pepperoni is another necessity, thick-cut to hold up to the oven.

But fresh, high-quality produce is paramount for a literal trial by fire.

After three minutes in the oven the pies emerge with a crisp, chewy crust, with toppings roasted to perfection and still holding their best attributes.

“Produce-wise we try where we can to buy local; we work with FreshPoint and have everything flown in three times a week,” said co-founder Eric Greenwald. “Our corporate chef, Corey Latuccss, is extremely passionate about produce, quality and brightness. He’s cost-conscious but I always tell him you can’t put a price on taking the next step up and having the right product and he agrees. He obviously watches commodities and pricing, but it’s about quality, not pricing.”

Which is why Grimaldi’s offers toppings like fresh artichokes, Bell pepper, sundried and sliced tomatoes.

The chain also discourages diners from loading up a pie, recommending just a topping or two for a supreme taste experience.

“I tell our servers to recommend that people only get one or two, at most three and only then if they’re complementary,” said General Manager Randy Bartoe at the Westshore location. “It’s all about the way the flavors blend and work with the crust, the sauce and the cheese. A lot of extra toppings is just a waste of money — we tell them to save it for cheesecake.”

The half-dozen locations make Florida the second-largest link in the Grimaldi’s chain, behind Texas with 10. The company could no doubt grow more quickly than it is, but Greenwald said progress will be incremental and carefully measured.

“We could easily go out and open a lot of new stores in a hurry but we’d rather do it right,” Greenwald said. “We will be opening somewhere between eight and 10 locations in 2014, and in 2015 we’ll open up 12 to 15 locations. We always like to infill — the goal is never to have just one sitting out there for multiple reasons. We have a spot in Ohio, a spot in Baton Rouge, LA, one in Denver we’re about to break ground on, our first one in Manhattan Beach, CA, broke ground two weeks ago. We could easily do 25 to 30 locations in California alone. But it’s a new start — we’ll open it and run it eight to 12 months and get the feedback. If it’s anything like I’m looking at in the social media we will probably be doing those other locations rather quickly. We put on Facebook that Grimaldi’s was coming to Manhattan Beach and asked where else should we come in California. In seven minutes we had 108 responses from all over California and additional ones like, ‘What about us in Seattle or New Mexico?’ I took a snapshot of that page and sent it right to our real estate team.”