If you live in Southern Highlands, you’ve never been more lucky. Your new neighborhood Italian eatery happens to be helmed by one of the all-time Las Vegas greats when it comes to this style of cuisine, James Beard Award-winning chef Luciano Pellegrini. He ran the show at the legendary Valentino at Venetian until it closed in 2013, then worked as consulting chef at Marché Bacchus and created his own DolceVita Gelato company selling sweet stuff to restaurants and casinos all over the Valley.
Pellegrini teamed with his cousin, chef David Ryan Brister—a Las Vegas Cordon Bleu grad who has cooked all over Texas and for the Dallas Cowboys—to open Heavenly Pies in August. The pizza-centric concept is new for him, and Heavenly’s menu covers all the bases and is set up perfectly for pandemic-era takeout.
The pies are something of a mix between Neapolitan and Roman style, which sounds very Italian but eats very familiar—a heavenly balance of crispy, chewy thin-crust goodness. You can start with a classic cheese ($10 individual, $18 large) and add your favorite toppings ($2-$4) as you go, but the list of ingredients here eclipses most neighborhood joints: seven sauces, from creamy pesto to roasted onion; burrata or Gorgonzola alongside traditional mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses; and specialty meats like slow-cooked pork sausage cotechino and luxurious mortadella.
The namesake pizza is an umami explosion, with black truffle tomato sauce, roasted garlic, brie, porcini mushrooms, speck and escarole ($18-$28). Heavenly’s version of the barbecue chicken pizza ($16-$26) adds pickled okra to the standard selections of barbecue sauce, onions and cilantro, while the Green Pizza ($16-$26) goes veggie crazy with pesto, asparagus, rapini, spinach, zucchini and plenty of smooth roasted garlic.
Family-style takeout meal packages are meant to feed four but can be stretched, especially the hearty Nonna’s lasagna pack ($110) with four portions of the entree, a giant Caesar salad, garlic knots and dessert. There’s a whole roasted chicken pack, too, with pasta pomodoro and asparagus, along with bread and sweets ($120). But if those don’t fit your takeout model, the trattoria menu definitely has something for everybody. See if you can top this lineup: beef-pork-veal meatballs with fried polenta ($12), fritto misto with sweet peppers ($16), a knockout spaghetti amatriciana ($15) and lemony chicken piccata with capers and rustic roasted potatoes ($20). The possibilities are endless, and there’s even a kids menu.
HEAVENLY PIES 11370 Southern Highlands Parkway, 702-896-0055. Daily, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
