Jordan Smith, the opening chef at Mission American Kitchen, the consultant who helped reinvent Downtowner Woodfire Grill, and a longtime D’Amico star, is getting ready to open a new restaurant near Downtown Minneapolis.

It has no name yet but does have a location, 600 Washington Ave. N. It will be a pizzeria but not like any Minnesota pizzeria I know of. Its hook will be a coal-fired oven, a type of pizza cookery most common in the Northeast and the essential form of pizza in New York City. The oven fires at 900 degrees, meaning pies are done in approximately two minutes.

Clean-burning (“cleaner than wood”) anthracite coal sits on the deck of the oven and imparts “a unique flavor, a deep smokiness,” Smith says, but there is no dust or black lung disease. If you’ve been to Patsy’s in NYC, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t but have been to Punch or Nea, expect a sturdier (but not thick) crust than on Neapolitan pies and a texture that’s not as wet.

Smith expects to have sixty seats and offer pizza, salads, some apps cooked in the coal oven, plus beer and wine; he hopes to be open by August 1.

(Photo Courtesy of Lombardi's Pizza in New York City)