The age-old family recipes used at Master Pizza came to the US from Bagheria, Italy in the early 1900s, courtesy of Frank and Dora Castronovo, whose sons continue to keep the clan's culinary heritage alive at four New Jersey locations. There, they serve numerous homemade pastas and seafood dishes alongside strombolis, veal entrees, and 25 gourmet pizzas. These aren't your average, run-of-the-mill pies, though—cooks rope in myriad out-of-the-box ingredients ranging from penne pasta and ricotta cheese to real bruschetta and egg-battered chicken in a lemon wine sauce.

Crispy, oven-baked pizzas and traditional Italian staples don't hog the entire spotlight, though. Customers can also sink their teeth into gyros, wings, New York-style deli sandwiches, and stuffed pita pockets. And cooks regularly whip up more than 25 lunch-friendly wraps, many of which feature names that pay homage to famous Italian bigwigs, such as Sinatra, DeNiro, and Chicken Caesar, who was the first bird emperor of Rome.