Village Pizza in Norton All About Freshness

Omar Sallat started his life in civil engineering, but always had a soft spot for cooking.

Sallat, owner of Village Pizza in Norton, started working with food when he was about seven years old helping his dad in his restaurant in Syria.

“He had a barbeque shop then and I learned everything about food,” he said. “I had never expected to work in the food industry, but when I left Syria in 1990, I had a family to support.”

Sallat said his experience working with his father helped him to appreciate freshness in food. He said now he feels there is no comparison, and strives to replicate that in Village Pizza.

“Fruits, vegetables, wheat, even the lamb or sheep we ate, was always very fresh,” he said. “The watermelon there, I’ve never eaten anything so tasty. You put in a knife and the watermelon almost cuts by itself. There was nothing so ripe or sweet. Here I try to keep everything as fresh as possible.”

Sallat added he tries to buy local whenever possible.

“I just stopped at the Attleboro Famers Market for some cucumbers,” he said. “It’s very close to what I had at home.”

Sallat said he started working in Attleboro at a pizza place for about eight years before he opened Village Pizza in the city. He said he always makes the Italian-style pizza as apposed to the Greek style because he feels it is a better process with a better final product.

“Hold it, fold it and eat it,” he said. “It goes right on the brick oven and it cooks very nice. The brick oven takes one hour to heat up and cook a pizza.”

Sallat also cooks many Middle Eastern foods as well, and won the 2003 Taste of Attleboro for his Falafel. In 2006 he moved to Norton right down the line on Route 123. He said the style of food, baklava, grape leaves, hummus, baba ganoush, is catching on.

“We don’t have a big community from the Middle East here, but we have a lot of other people who come in and love the food,” he said.

He said he makes it all from scratch.

“My view about the food is if I can’t eat it, I can’t sell it,” he said.

Sallat said he works the shop with his family. He said the strangest thing someone ordered at the restaurant was a pizza with jalapeno poppers, buffalo chicken and pineapple chunks.

“How it works all together I have no idea,” he said with a laugh. “He said it was very good.”

Village Pizza is located on 360 Old Colony Rd. and is open Monday - Thursday, 10:30 a.m. - 9:30 p.m.; Friday, Saturday, 10:30 a.m. -10 p.m.; Sunday, noon - 8pm.