So, we go from pizza in Italy, and throughout America, we made it ours. Regional styles helped characterize good stuff from all over- New York, New England, Chicago, California.
All these styles of pie, and I still needed to make my own. There was a pizza guy named Mike working at my step-dad’s pizza place on Long Island. It was he who made two pies side by side with the same dough, sauce, cheese and they were two totally different pies. Why? because he made one traditional and one what he called bakery style. Cheese on top of the dough with the sauce lightly spread out over the top. Wow. Really, it was a revelation to me and I swore that when I opened my own place we would serve cheese down first on our pies.
And so we do. It’s our signature, the thing that makes it mine. Cheese first is cool in lots of ways, but mostly, it’s something we do that no one (okay, almost no one) does.
There’s other things, too. We used a quick cooked sauce which is probably considered blasphemy among pizza afficionados, but we played around and felt that the cooked sauce had SO much flavor- it tasted better than the uncooked. And, we’re not trying to be traditional; we’re just trying to be us.
More. Salt is a key. We oil and salt our crust so that at the end of the slice you have a special, salty, doughy snack. A delicious pizza bone.
Also, we like to cook our pies dark. I actually like mine nearly burnt (which we’ve stopped doing much to the happiness of our loyal guests). Sometimes we’ll send a pie out that someone might consider burnt. But it’s only charred. Big difference. Promise. I’m not saying that we have not burned a pie or two, but take a bite before you judge. Trust me.
I wanted toppings that rocked. Again, different. Specialty pies. They’re a compilation of travels, restaurants, dreams, and booze induced late night eating extravaganzas that Kim and I have had over the years. We’ve both traveled a lot, read a lot, and really eaten a lot (I probably win in that last category). Still, we wanted people to find something delicious, and out of the ordinary. We’re definitely doing that.
So there you have it. I think. For now at least. Good pizza takes many shapes and forms. I still always try to find the best pizza in the towns that I travel to. And I’ve had pizza that’s better than ours. Most (and I mean almost all of it) is not. That makes me very proud.