Housed in a former school built by the Italian Workers' Society in 1901, the restaurant's dark stairwell opens on to a sheltered courtyard surrounded by mature trees and abundant foliage - part dining room, part botanical garden.

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Of course, the best way to enjoy pizza is at a little local pizzeria overlooking the Bay of Naples, washed down with whatever the restaurant serves, in all likelihood a local Aglianico, a dark-red wine with high acidity and high tannins.

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It was not yet dark, but my compatriots were favorably impressed by the restaurant's famously gaudy exterior, lights and bright colors.

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She was working nights at a restaurant in the Village, then going home to Brooklyn and waking in the dark to put on full makeup and stand in line for early-morning chorus calls back in Manhattan.

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He pulled hard on the restaurant door, forcing it open, and stumbled with his tattered flowers into the dark realm between the door and the velvet drapes that had been hung to keep the cold from sweeping in over diners at the front of the room.

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You might expect a restaurant serving the world's least politically correct meal to be hidden away at the end of a dark alley.

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