I’m not a pizzaiolo, but I do eat a good bit of pizza (most of my posts on here) and also make pizza and stay up with the trends.
Ultimately if someone likes something they like it, and I’m much more interested in the reasons for that than fetishizing process or sourcing etc.
That said, all the really spectacular pizza places have dough obsessives. I don’t think Nancy or anyone has a secret or magic recipe, but things like proofing time, hydration etc, while not magic, are probably better managed in house.
Really? I’m skeptical that this is any different than Sei or any top level place. And that she’s not overseeing the dough in house kinda argues against that. And Triple Beam is a pretty poor representation of taglio.
She said in an interview I read that how her recipe was way more complicated than typical Italian ones and that Italian pizzaioli would think she was crazy.
if no no one seems to have noticed when this change occurred any difference in quality then why is it a big deal? They probably just don’t have enough kitchen space at the Mozza-Plex to produce enough dough for the volume of pizzas they make. It’s being outsourced to one of the best bread bakers in town, mostly likely to spec.
Has anybody tried making Nancy’s foccia recipe on master master chefs with Julia Child . This is from years ago on PBS . I’m real interested in her sourdough starter beginning with a slurry of flour , water , and grapes .
Respectfully, her claim is more than a little ridiculous. Most well reputed pizza places, here or in Europe, now use a biga or poolish (which she refers to as a sponge), a form of prefermented dough, to add flavor and texture. In the past maybe old school Neapolitan places were doing a straight dough, 24 hour dough mostly fermented at room temperature, but that’s not where cutting edge pizza culture is these days.
out sourcing could be an interesting topic. Wasn’t there a chicken & waffles restaurant in Long Beach using Popeyes chicken ? When confronted about it he said, well yeah, Popeyes is the best fried chicken so why wouldn’t I use it ?
I don’t mind the outsourcing so much if the product is being made to a custom recipe or is generic and not essential to how the restaurant represents itself.
Not to start a side chat from the side chat but would really love to know more about this - where is cutting edge pizza culture right now, who are the leaders in the space, and where do you keep up with the scene?
(And just to be clear because this is the stupid internet, I’m 100% earnest here)
A pizzeria has to hire someone to make the dough. If it’s the same recipe and the same ingredients, who cares whether that person works in the restaurant or at a supplier? If they work at a supplier, that frees up space and time at the restaurant to do other things.
Other restaurants could (and perhaps do) get pastrami and bread from Langer’s suppliers, but their hot pastrami sandwiches would not be as good unless they also did all the things Langer’s does on site to maximize the quality, like expertly hand-slicing the meat and keeping the bread in warming drawers.
The argument, which you might not find persuasive: it’s a temperamental, finicky thing requiring attention and skill and adjustment, best managed in house. Not quite saying dough is singular but don’t think it’s analogous to curing pastrami.
Sure it may be obsessive or overkill, but I think what Sei or Una Pizza are doing is a different thing than what Mozza is.
*Not a pizza historian but it does seem Nancy Silverton was pretty early on using preferments (poolish, sponge, biga whatever you wanna call it) to add texture and flavor.
Good question! I am by no means an expert, more a dabbler and a home cook, but it’s a combination of trying to make pizza at home and reading forums like…
And then eating at well reputed or interesting places in Italy and elsewhere. There’s been a trend since like the late teens towards what some call a Canotto style, a least as far as Neapolitan is concerned, where the crust is incredibly puffy. Places like https://www.seupizza.com/ and Best Pizza in the World? Pizzeria I Masanielli Delivers, where he’s also cooking pizza at different temperatures and steaming pizza. And I’d love to know what the guy at 400c in Tokyo is doing. His place in Okayama has one of the highest Tabelog in Japan, and apparently he cooks on a conveyor belt oven. 400℃ PIZZA TOKYO (神楽坂) (@kagurazaka400do) • Instagram photos and videos
There’s also the world of people discovering and reinterpreting or trying to perfect regional pizza styles, whether Chicago bar pies at Quarter Sheets or this guy doing crazy almost omakase style stuff in northern Italy - Pizza, Perfected. And I’m curious what Leopardo is doing (Shot in the dark, but I’d guess they’re doing some high hydration crust somewhat influenced by pinsa, which is a light, airy roman style that has wheat, soy and rice flour in the mix)
And I don’t say all this to impugn more old line places like Da Michaele or whatever. People should like what they like. I’m always more interested in the reasons why someone likes something than whether they have the right or sanctioned or canonical taste.
