August 26, 2024 • 56 mins
Jim Serpico speaks with Anthony Falco, author of the book Pizza Czar, chef, and full-service restaurant consultant focusing on pizza. He helps create world-class pizza brands from the ground up by counseling on custom equipment design, sourcing local ingredients, providing expertise on pizza ovens and tools, installation, ventilation, menu development, kitchen design, on-sight training, brand positioning, and more.
They talk about how growing up in a working-class family helped shape Anthony’s path, camaraderie in the kitchen, being attracted to a particular lifestyle, whether or not pizza is bread, mobile pizza making, and opening restaurants.
Visit Anthony’s consulting website at https:/www.piz.za.com/ and Instagram at @millennium_falco.
Follow Jim Serpico on Instagram at @jimserpico and @sidehustlebread.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jim-serpico-bread-for-the-people-sourdough-pizza-life--5704379/support.
They talk about how growing up in a working-class family helped shape Anthony’s path, camaraderie in the kitchen, being attracted to a particular lifestyle, whether or not pizza is bread, mobile pizza making, and opening restaurants.
Visit Anthony’s consulting website at https:/www.piz.za.com/ and Instagram at @millennium_falco.
Follow Jim Serpico on Instagram at @jimserpico and @sidehustlebread.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jim-serpico-bread-for-the-people-sourdough-pizza-life--5704379/support.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The following episode of Bread for the People is brought
to you by Side Hustle Bread, Long Island's handcrafted, artisanal
bread company. Side Hustle Bread is a family run virtual
bakery that's bringing the neighborhood feel back to Long Island,
one loaf at a time. Head on over to side
Hustlebread dot com for more information, upcoming appearances and merchandise.
My name's Jim Curpico. And this should I start with
(00:24):
my name? Or should I start with this? Is Bread
for the People. Do you like it like this? Welcome
to bread?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Or do you like it like this? Welcome Ready, Welcome
to Bread for the people? Mind fuck? Is there a script.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
For the people?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Welcome to Bread for the People.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I'm Jim Curproico, my guest today is the author of Pizzazar.
He's made pizza all over the world. He's a full
service restaurant consultant with a focus on pizza. He creates
world class pizza brands from the ground up, including custom
equipment design, so sourcing, local ingredients, expertise on pizza ovens
(01:11):
and tools, installation, ventilation, menu development, kitchen design, on site training,
brand positioning, and more. Tony Falco welcome to bread for
the people.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Thanks for having me. You are excited talk bread and bread.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
We're gonna get to bread. We're gonna get to bread.
You are a legend.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
It sounds from what I've read about you that we
both grew up in households where our dads were characters. Okay,
So when I was a kid, and I'm talking like
ten eleven, I would crawl in the front seat of
my dad's Cadillac because the doors were never were never locked,
(01:58):
and I would find under the front seat tire irons, knives, blackjacks,
and occasionally a bullet. Now, as far as I knew,
my father was a trumpet player, and he was, but
there were nights he would come home literally with the
(02:19):
window shot out.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Wow. And he was a trumpet.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Player for what they called the New York club dates
and weddings, and he owned the company. And it was
like DJ companies today, whether they would have five or
six bands out of a night. And he was a
house band at mob catering halls and those were his buddies. Now,
I'm not romanticizing or glamorizing or condoning. It is what
(02:47):
it is, and it partly shaped who I am today,
not that I'm involved in any of that, but obviously
there's certain things that kind of rub off or you
have to make choices out of young From what I
know about you, your father was into some stuff a
little different, which put you on a path to have
(03:09):
to go to work at a very young age.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Yeah, that's correct. It's it's interesting because I mean I
think in some ways, you know, that experience was part
of this whole like unorthodox kind of path in life
that has been like always there for me and for him.
Because yeah, I mean, you know, you you would want
(03:35):
to really like sum it up quickly and say, okay,
you know this my dad guy Sicilian American who had
you know, was involved in some things, but it was
very different, you know. I mean there was no it
was a hippie too, you know, and he was he
(03:55):
was a hash smuggler, which now is like a you know,
like a legal profession and like you know, like and
he I think he always thought it was going to
be legal, but he was just off by it like
thirty years or something. But in general, it was very
much like into Buddhism and non violence and like his
(04:17):
whole thing was like, you know, he I think he
knew people in the world of various mobs, would you know,
be an Italian American or Mexican or Southeast Asian or whatever.
I think he I think he operated in that world.
But he his form of armor and protection was karmic
(04:38):
nonviolent energy, if that makes any sense, because his whole
thing was like he felt like if people, you know,
wanted to use cannabis, that it might make them more
peaceful and then maybe make the world more peaceful. And
day he's been a vegetarian for like fifty years or
something like that, you know, and he jeh jeat definitely
(04:58):
very It definitely shaped my life. He'd left, you know,
he had to go on the run, like in the
when I when I just first got into high school.
So yeah, I had to start working very early on.
My mom is from Baltimore, from a working class family
in inner city Baltimore, and she, you know, she was
(05:19):
very very tough lady, still is very tough lady. And
she gave me a really strong work ethic. You know,
it was like there was not I mean, I always
liked to side hustle, but she was very insistent that
I get a job and you know, nothing too fancy.
She's like, it'd probably be good for you to clean
some toilets, you know, probably be good for you to
(05:39):
do some real manual labor. And I think it was,
you know, and I I really enjoy working. And that's
where restaurants really kind of kind of stuck into my life.
Is I just really enjoyed the people and that work,
real work where you could look at days work and
see it. I worked in briefly in the tech world
(06:01):
and in some offices, and it just it's not for everybody.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
You know, definitely not speaking of loving the work and
the camaraderie, I think you're referring to. You have a
quote from the book that says I loved hanging out
at the bar with friends after I'd smell like a
cross between a fresh baked pizza and a campfire.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
It was awesome. I love that smell.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Yeah, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Totally relate to what you're talking about. I don't know
what it is about it. Maybe it's because you know,
you put in those long hours and that's the result,
and it does it smells like the place you want
to be. I get it, man, I get it. And
I also get that you kind of found camaraderie through
(06:49):
the restaurant business, which is something I long for because
I found I have found camaraderie through the TV business.
I don't have a television show shooting right now, and
as a television show creator in that profession, you don't
always have a show right There could be many years
and gaps, and you miss having something for five to
(07:13):
seven years with the same people every day and working
those long hours and then seeing that finished product even
though you're exhausted.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Camaraderie was one of the best parts of it.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And since I started doing the food semi professionally, I've
been doing it as a lone wolf, and I kind
of long for figuring out a way to get into
a situation where I could build a team and have
that camaraderie.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah, I mean, I have intersected with production people through
my work. Used to do a lot of music festivals,
so used to do a lot of you know, we
would do some catering for film and things like that,
and I've been like shot some TV shows and pilots
(08:01):
and things like that, and I do there's definitely a connection.
It's like it, you know, when I was talking about
like that. It's it's not so much that necessarily that
we want to do this specific thing. It's more that
we just don't fit in into the regular you know
world of like it was kind of like school. You know,
It's like I liked school all right, but like I
(08:22):
didn't like the learning and the reading and you know
that part of school I like, but like the like
sitting in a you know, sitting here when you they
tell you to sit here, and going here when they
tell you to do Like I like the you know,
there's always something different I feel like and then also
that you did the work needs to be done no
(08:43):
matter what. You know, there's no like, Okay, well we'll
put this off until tomorrow. It's like there's the kind
of insanity of like production work, and whether it be
in the restaurant business or in your film and TV world,
is that people were just there's this attitude of like, hey,
we're just gonna do what we got to do to
make this happen.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
To me that that kind of lifestyle I just and
the people that that lifestyle attracted I think was very cool,
you know, And I always wanted to do like a
you know, TV even film. I was a big film
nerd as a like kid growing up in the nineties.
Like I mean, I loved movies it, you know, I
really loved you know what they would have called in
(09:25):
the nineties, like indie cinema.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I remember seeing like Lain in the in the movie
theater in ninety six. Uh, you know, link letters stuff
because I grew up in Austin, you know, Rob Rodriguez,
like Quin Tarantino obviously, I mean, and then you know,
grew up with my dad with showing me like Godfather
and Goodfellas and all that stuff and all the great
(09:48):
Italian American cinema stuff. I loved Coursawa, huge, huge band
and tried to work my way through as much of
the class. I mean. Once, you know, when you you like,
you find a movie that you love and then you say, wow,
I mean, if you like Reservoir Dogs, you know, you
should watch Le Samurai, you know, and then it's like
(10:10):
now you're in this like kind of like peeling back
layers of history and going back through it, you know,
and you know, oh, you think Star Wars is cool, Wait,
you should see Hidden Fortress, you know, and it's like
like that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
It just it's endless, right, Yeah, isn't it the same
with bread making and pizza making?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
In a way?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Absolutely, it's the same thing exactly. It's like, you know,
if you get you know, Paul Bertoli's you know, Cooking
by Hand and you love that book, it's like, well,
you know, get Marcella his End's Essentials of Italian Cooking,
and you go back and you go back, and then
it's how to Cook a Wolf, and then it's like,
you know, you start peeling back the layers and then
there's you know, there's stuff that it's even more hard
(10:50):
to find in deeper cuts, and you know, it's addictive,
you know.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
And then it goes the other way too.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It's like I was talking to another guest who really
talks of the philosophy of mastering like the basic Actually
you talk about it too, You talk about mastering a
base before you move on to toppings. You know, she
talks about it in reference to dough and simple sour
dough and like, really master your sour dough, your basic sourdough,
(11:16):
and once you get that down, start swapping out ingredients there, right,
So it goes the other way, and then you start
building a repertoire off of the base, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Mean, and just like the appreciation for simplicity, you know,
which is I think the core of Italian cuisine is
simplicity of taking great ingredients and not messing them up,
you know, and like having a rhythm with the seasonality,
you know. I mean, I think that was something that
(11:49):
I learned in the restaurant world, you know, definitely seasonality
and farm to table cooking. I learned a lot of
Robertas and Vinegar Hill and these places I cooked at.
But at the same time, you know, it was something
that I had a reference point for because you know,
when it was gogots this season, that was like all
we ate for a few months and everyone was super
(12:10):
excited about it, and then the favas would you know,
we're coming, and then you know, it's like art choke
season and that kind of it comes and it goes.
And I think that you're a lot of people who
aren't like super passionate about food, you know, in living
the modern American society, go to the grocery store and
it's just you know, it's the same thing all year round.
(12:32):
They don't understand the pulse of nature and how you know,
when you eat an eggplant that's in season, it's a
big difference from just that thing that's there all year round,
like or tomato. You know, like it's this reverence for
you know, the impermanence of this like cycle of nature.
I think is it comes down to simplicity, because like
(12:54):
you know, when you talk about like a tomato season,
you get a great tomato, Like what's the best recipe
for it is just pick it while it's still warm
from the sun and slice it, put a little salt
and olive oil on it, walk away. I mean that's
the best, you know.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, yeah, But I guess we live these busy lives
and most people just I mean, I don't.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I don't blame them for not knowing.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
It's hard for people to discover that in this day
and age unless you really have an interest in it.
And I guess they're not realizing they're shipping these tomatoes
in from all over the world depending on what time
of year it is.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
There's a lot of intentional obfuscation by big corporate you know,
food businesses. But I think, you know, we're in a
we're in a golden age of bread and I think
seasonal cooking right now in the United States, I mean,
and I think we're definitely in a golden age for pizza.
I mean, people are all over the country. I mean,
(13:48):
they're you know, there's there's no longer like a monopoly
on great pizza when it comes to you know, the
East Coast, and you know, it's it's really just not
only all over the United States, but I'm just more
and more seeing all around the world people just really
you know, making great pizza. I mean, and it to me,
it starts with the dough. And there's a somewhat of
(14:10):
a debate amongst pizza makers whether pizza is bread or not.
And like, I think that's kind of a silly question.
That's obviously bread, I mean to.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Me, And but why I know, I'm I'm really new
to this, but it's so much of the same techniques
I used to making my sour dough then you know
that I used for making my pizza.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I mean, there's no question there at all to me.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
But before we get into some of that, which I
do want to talk about, I want to talk about Roburders.
You know, they are unbelievably great pizza restaurant. At the
time you worked there you were telling the stories about
a couple guys that were really great, and one of
them didn't have the best bedside manner.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I don't remember who that is.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I think I think it was there.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Somewhere the guy would like kind of scream at you
about the doll or.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I don't work it was some code I read.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
But the bottom line is, you got you got the
skills out of them, right, these guys.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, I mean I got a lot of things out
of it. You know, I'm really happy that Roberta has
continued success also all around the world now and still,
you know, maintain friendships with a lot of great pizza
makers that work there. You know, even people that I
worked with are still there.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
But in the early days, was it that there was
not really a chain of command and no one taken accountability.
Was that the restaurant where someone said either step up
and take charge?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Yeah, Well, it wasn't a lot of people, and it
was one room, and it wasn't very busy, and you know,
I was just kind of making pizza part time, bouncing around.
I hadn't even decided to dedicate myself fully to I mean,
I didn't know what to do with my life. I
was in my late twenties and I had met the
owners while I was bartending, and you know, yeah, I
(16:00):
mean I think it was Brandon that said to me, like,
you know, if you want to be a man, be
a man. And you know, my work now as a consultant,
like the main thing I do is like go into
an environment of chaos and try to create order, you know, right,
and try to keep create like operating procedures and try
(16:21):
to create consistency in the product. And in the beginning,
there was a lot of a lot of artistry and
you know, there wasn't a lot of consistency, and there
wasn't even really a you know, an idea for what
the pizza should be. Like it was, you know, it
was a little free form, which I think is a
good thing. You know, at first, I don't think you
can do that anymore now because you know, the cycle
(16:43):
of review and like people coming in with camera phone.
I mean there was no camera phones really back then.
I mean, if there were, it was limited. And so
you know, you get a little bit of time as
a new restaurant to kind of like improve and learn
on the job, whereas now I feel like you've got
to be. You got to have the product dialed in
(17:05):
right when you open, because it's like people are going
to come in and just the cycle is just so fast.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
And then you don't want to get a negative review
out of the gate. Otherwise it's it's yeah, it's tough.
I actually found my notes on that name, and forgive me,
I'm gonna Butcher's name, and I hope it's the right restaurant.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Nor Sugio, is that it? Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
He would say to you if he didn't like your pizza,
This pizza to me is shit. Oh oh oh, malo okay, yeah, malo.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah. Malro was like one of the original partners from
Italy and no, he was great, but he was an artist,
you know, and he would say this all the time.
He's like, I'm an artist. I'm not a pizza maker,
you know. Yeah, but you got to make pizza. And
he had lots of great recipes and techniques and stuff
like that, but like, yeah, he's an artist, you know.
And so it was a little to me, it was
(17:58):
like I need a little more kind of order, so
like and then they, yeah, they they made me the
first manager. In the informal way that it happened and
you know, I kind of floated in and out after
that a little bit. And uh, and then when I
bought this pizza oven, you know, I came back into
the fold. And eventually they gave me, after a few years,
(18:22):
the title pizzas Are They gave me that title. You know,
I think it's kind of a silly title.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
But was that Do you think it was a compliment
or were they busting you chops or.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
I think they might have been busting my job. I mean,
I think it was also a very real like need
because now, like at that time, the company had, you know,
a restaurant they had to take out and delivery, They
had mobile operations, catering, a frozen pizza company was being developed,
you know, and so you know, you needed someone who
could kind of float around all those worlds, you know.
(18:54):
And I think that I wasn't in the restaurant all
the time because of that, because sometimes it was in
the frozen pizza factory, or sometimes it was at a
music festival, you know, But like I was at all
of the off side stuff. So you know, when we
popped up in Brazil, I was there, When we were
in Toronto, was there Miami Basel was there Bannu there.
I did so of these music festivals.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
You would literally open a kioska booth and fire up
and make fresh pizzas.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Yeah, we had a wood fired oven. I bought the
first one, and then we eventually had like a fleet
of three and we would pull them in and create. Like,
I really learned a lot about dough and a lot
about pizza making doing the mobile operations, because you know,
when you are in a building and it's somewhat of
a safe you know, consistent time and temperature and all
(19:45):
that stuff. You know, you you kind of can only
know the variables that you have, but like when you're
out in the while, yeah, and in their rain. Not
only that, but like trying to do you know, a
pop up in like I learned a lot, like doing
the first south By Southwest pop up. It was in
Austin where I bought the first oven, that the mobile oven.
(20:08):
You know, there was just different ingredients in Texas, you know,
I had to find different Like I tried to use
fresh East when I first made pizza there like we
did in New York, but like nobody else uses fresh East,
so it was it had expired unbeknownst to me. So
then the next day after the first test batch, you know,
it was just a pancake or it was a tortilla.
It hadn't it hadn't risen at all. So you know,
(20:31):
I had to learn all these kind of different I
had to learn all kinds of you know, what are
all the variables that are included. Like when I went
to Brazil with Roberta's, you know, I had to I mean,
that's a whole new world, but it's a you know,
also a pizza world, so they had pizza ingredients. And
when I went to Toronto, I did a pop up
there and and you know, had like monzarell occurred, is
(20:54):
a very common thing on the East Coast and in
the United States. It they didn't really have it in
so I had a hard time finding that to do
the fresh Monzarello, and I had to use the you know,
they have the Canadian flowers, so you know, seeing how
and that really prepared me for And that's what you know,
the bizarre thing was for It's like, you know, we
(21:15):
can just send him to a different city and he
will recreate Roberta's pizza with you know, just the knowledge
of the base from being in the restaurant for so long,
but then also going out and doing it.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
So I have an interest in that myself.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
You know, my bread making right now is kind of
relegated to the weekends in local farmers' markets. But I've
been making more and more pizza with the guys and
these stuff, and as I get deeper into this, I
am interested in in doing that in person.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
It's tough. It's a young man's game too. Yeah, take
any any amount of hours that you want to operate,
and then tack on a few hours of transportation and
then going back to the home base and cleaning everything,
and then like the physicality of just being outside and
having to pick everything up and move it. I mean
(22:10):
it was. It was some crazy hours. You know. I
had a bunch of really great people on my team
that had stuck with me through all those years. We
were like a little group within the group the mobile operations.
I can imagine we were like the it's the special Forces.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
I probably have to team up with someone, like you said,
because I am this lone wolf and I'm not the
youngest guy. But I will tell you that on my weekends, man,
I'm putting a lot of time in because I'm doing
the baking and I'm manning the booth.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
It's a lot and it's physical. Yeah, it's physical.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
People don't realize lugging the fifty pound sacks of flour,
lugging the booth set up, loading the car, climbing in
and out.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Well, at least you have the rock boxes now, you know,
Because I mean I when I first bought that oven,
that was like really the only option for like doing
really good, you know, wood fired pizza. And it was
I mean for the price for like whatever twenty thousand
dollars that oven, when you could buy the whole setup
(23:17):
and like five rocks boxes side by side, which will
give you the same cooking capacity, yeah, as one of
those portable ovens. But I gotta tell you, there was
nothing better in my entire cooking career, you know, from
then and now, nothing was better or more satisfying than
cooking pizza in a wood fired oven with nothing but
(23:38):
blue skies above me, and on like a beautiful spring
day with perfect weather, you know. I mean, it was
just and if all the preparation had been done ahead
of time, and I had a good crew and we
were going and we're just cranking pizzas out. I mean,
that was really it was the best experience, you know,
of my cooking career, and I don't think, I don't
know if I could match that. It was just really amazing,
(24:00):
especially when we were doing things like you know, Freeze
Artfare or south By Southwest, and it was just there
was all this energy around us, you know, it was
really amazing. It was an amazing time.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
And you know, like, I guess I'm young enough in
my bread baking career, like literally three years in you
don't know what you don't know, so you don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I kind of know.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
But I'm willing to pay my dues man, even though
I'm a middle aged guy. I know, I'm new to
this business, and I want to do the work. I
want to learn the art and I want to do
the work so that I am ultimately an expert in it.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yeah, I mean, that's all it takes. It's never too
late to start. All it takes is the passion, you know,
and I you know, but yeah, I mean, those eighteen
hour days don't just roll off my back like they
used to. But now luckily I have I get it
in doses, you know, so I'll be like I just
spent ten days on site with my client in DC,
(25:09):
and then I get a day or two rest and
I'm back here in my home base in the office.
I'm doing reports and work for other clients and follow
up and you know, I get a little body recovery
and get to like, you know, flex some of my
other skills besides just being you know, a grunt. But
you know, in those early days of in a restaurant startup,
(25:31):
I mean it's like not you don't have like staffing
sometimes hard. So sometimes I'm doing dishes till you know,
two in the morning, which fine by me. Dishwashing was
one of my favorite jobs. Still is something very satisfying
about you know, it's meditating.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
You're zoning in on I do it. I have to
do it.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
You have to do it. There's no choice, you have
to do it.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, I really want to set the stage for the
listeners now though that day understand what it is you
really do. Now, Okay, you talked about being in DC,
So we'll play both ends of the stick here, which
may not be too far from a reality. I'm gonna
wanna be restaurant tour. I'm gonna call a guy I'm
(26:17):
not a guy like you, I'm gonna call you. You are
the guy. Okay, people must understand this. This isn't a
random guy. This is the guy that you call anywhere
in the world when you want to open up a
pizza related restaurant, right, And I'll be very honest, my
dream not that I don't know that I'll ever get there,
(26:38):
but it would be bread slash pizza based. And I see,
I see like the Facacia sandwiches and the porchetta into
the stuff you post Like that's slam in the middle
of what I want to do, you know, with the
pizza and the neapolitan ish but those types of sandwiches, breakfast, lunch, dinner. Yeah,
(26:58):
and you can do it anywhere in the country, in
the world. It's not the water blah blah blah. But
now to you at what stage, like some of these
guys who opened a restaurant, how many years of in
the planning is it?
Speaker 3 (27:13):
I mean, I think the longest project was almost four years,
five years before it opened the doors opened, you know.
The shortest from the time of engagement to opening was like,
you know, four months.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
But that was just well, that was that's my partners
in Brazil who are extremely on it, Like they've got
forty restaurants and bars. They are one hundred percent professionals,
which you know, that was a very speedy opening. But
generally the time when someone wants to like engage my
services is if you have are about to sign a lease,
(27:53):
or you've just sound signed a lease, and you have
this ideally, you have a blank slate, and I work
with you to design a kitchen layout, a flow that's
going to be efficient and that is going to match
the style of pizza that you want to do, the
service style that you want to do with the where
you are, the location where you are, and then we
(28:16):
design the menu and the kitchen simultaneously, and then we
start working on the challenge of sourcing. And you know
that's sometimes it's really you know, well, it's never easy,
but sometimes it's, uh.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Well, listen where I live. It's got to be a
lot easier. I live in Long Island. Yeah, We've got
access to everything, right, it's got to be pretty easy
relative to opening a pizza place in Montana, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Or Guyana. Yeah. But then there's like places that you
might think of, you know, because of what I do
is like I I you know, I never do the
same pizza recipe twice. You know, I've never I never
like sold the Roberta's pizza recipe to anyone, you know,
because hey, it's in the cookbook. So anyway, and the
(29:08):
New York Times video that I did with Sam Sifton
that has like ten million views or something like that.
So like we we let the recipe out a long
time ago, but you know, it wasn't mine, first of all,
and then second of all, I didn't want to do
it anymore. You know, I wanted to do something different,
and so I and I want to do something different
everywhere I go. So like when I was in DC
(29:28):
just now, you know, we were using some flour from
Wade's Mill, which is in Virginia. It's been milling stone
milling flowers since seventeen fifty. Incredible, incredible stuff, right, you know.
One of the most amazing projects I was ever a
part of that I was very lucky to be a
part of, was in Istanbul called Juicina, and Istanbul is
(29:49):
like a perfect place to make pizza because it's the Mediterranean,
so and it's where Turkey is, you know, where flower
originates from. So they have every variety. It's a real
bread culture, you know, so there's every kind of flower
you could imagine.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
I was.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
My clients were amazing. They were already soured oat bakers,
so like we we we could just go to the
advanced stage of the project. They had local cheeses, local meats,
The vegetables were incredible, the herbs were incredible. And then
take like Mediterranean something like Greece or Sicily or southern Italy.
But then add a layer onto that of like the
(30:25):
you know, the connection that they have with the Middle
East and the spice trade, and you know, you have
all these like interesting spices and and you know, so
it was, it was incredible. And then you know, contrast
that was like a place like you know, Bangkok, where
it's not a bread culture, it's a rice culture. They
(30:47):
don't really grow wheat there, you know, so you're starting
and they don't have a long history of cheese eating
and making. You know that it's not the best place
to grow tomatoes. So you're starting like already kind of
as at a deficit, and so you have to get creative,
you know. But uh, you know that's where that's where
(31:10):
the fun really starts.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
You know.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, and I guess the same principles go for within
the continental US, you know, bringing it to to like
South Carolina, where a lot of people from the East
are moving, so there's probably a need for it and
it's probably less saturated like where I live. I mean,
in my town alone, we must have twelve pizza reaes, right,
(31:34):
and you know, most of them are actually pretty good.
Even though I do agree with something you said in
the book about how there are a lot of bad
playing pizza places in New York. I've gotten in debates
with people about this.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Yeah, I've not. I've not been an uncontroversial character in
the pizza world. Yeah, partly just from just speaking my
what I like, my mind and what I think is true.
I'm not realizing how I'm upset it will make people.
I'm not trying to make anyone upset, you know, or
or like, you know, talk bad about anything. But you know,
(32:09):
I mean, it's just a basic fact that like there's
a vast amount of pizza places in New York and
that you know, they're not all great, like some of
them are really really outstanding, and that you know, I mean,
I'm from Austin, Texas and there's tons and tons of
Mexican restaurants, tons and tons of tex mex restaurants. You know,
(32:31):
there's like five or six that I would recommend to someone.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Sure, that's just well, like I said, I said, some
of these guys are just trying to make money right over,
you know, being artists.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Sure, that's it. I mean, it is what it is.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Especially, you know, I do worry, like I'm sitting here
and I'm doing this in Long Island, and I've looked
into retail stuff, but the cost per scure is so crazy,
and there's so many pizza places, and out of those
pizza places, there's a lot of good ones. Like what
(33:08):
would be the point? You know, what would excite me
is trying to bring it somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Well, I think the smart money is in the Southeast
or the mid Atlantic because there's just so much money
and then the cost of opening it is. But I mean,
the smart money is not in the restaurant business in
the first place. So I mean, it's like the I
try to talk most of my clients out of starting
a restaurant when they first called me. It's definitely there's
(33:36):
a lot easier ways to make money. I mean, but
if you have a passion for food, you know why,
like or if you really are you want to do
something that will make people happy, then that's the reason.
That's the reason to do it, you know. And pizza
in the in the like segment of all restaurants is
(33:56):
going to have a higher success rate than you know,
if you wanted to open you know, some kind of
like I don't know, like obscure style, like you know,
I want to do like West Virginian cuisine, you know
in the East village. You know, it's like, well that's
(34:17):
going to go over, you know. But you know, pizza
anywhere pizza is is the world's most favorite food. And
as someone who's really into history, I think it's because
it is the world's food. The world had to come
together to create it. There's no pizza without the Colombian exchange,
with the tomatoes coming from the New World to the
Old World, with you know, buff water buffalo coming from
(34:41):
India to you know, Italy some random way Basil originating
Southeast Asia. I mean, it all comes together, you know
in Italy. Sure, But like it's not even the Italians
that spread pizza around the world. It's the Italian Americans
the diaspora or even the non Italian America who you know,
(35:02):
innovated with technology like conveyor ovens and whatever you say
about you know, whatever you have to say about like
Domino's and Pizza Hut. You know, they have spread pizza
around the world, whether you call it real or not.
I mean it's it's they their technology and their you know,
drive to create it. And it was it was really
(35:22):
I think until the eighties that the Neapolitans kind of
were like, Okay, wait, this is our thing, like we
should be you know, like kind of taking this back,
you know, And I think it's it's cool to see
the waves of how it happens. It is the same
thing happened with coffee, you know. I mean you have
like like coffee, various waves of coffee culture spreading, and.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah, and beer, you know, yeah, those are my three
favorite things.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I would love to combine them all.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean that's that would be that
would be great. I mean it would look at like,
you know, that's the dream, right, It's like someone like
my one of my heroes in the pizza world, Anthony Mangieri.
You know, that's what he's got. Now, it's uh, he's
got arguably the best Neapolitan pizzeria and in America, if
not the world. I mean, I think he was named
(36:13):
best in the world by the fifty Best List. And
then now he's got the Neapolitan Cafe in the morning
where he does coffee Naples style coffee and pastries.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
I mean, that's what makes sense to me, just like
common sense wise is always what I thought of.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Yeah, and he does it out of just a passion
for you know, what he does in the culture, and
you know, and he's been doing sourdough pizza for decades,
you know, and and just you know, just just such
a hard working, awesome guy. I mean, I think it's
really the you know, the to me, you know, the
(36:48):
best of the pizza makers, I think. And yeah, I
have a lot of respect for for what he does
and anyone who is following their passion, whether I you know,
whether it's the kind of pizza I like or not.
I mean I like, you know, pretty much all of it,
as long as it's made with love, you know, you know,
you know the places where they love is an absent ingredient,
(37:10):
you know.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Isn't it the same in most careers it's like you
want to be an actor. They're really doing it to
become rich. I mean, I try to advise young people
like that is absolutely the wrong reason to do that
or any of this, because the chances are it's not
gonna make you rich. It's just the reality, guys, and
people hate to hear that, but it is the way
(37:31):
it is. Yeah, I mean, you gotta love it. You
gotta want to wake up in the morning to do
this shit. I fucking love waking up in the morning
and going to a farmer's market.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yeah, I really do.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
I love to see the result of my work that night,
and I love the customers. And I don't know, there's
something about conquering the sourdough thing and I feel good
about myself that I was able to do it, or
and finally learn how to use poolish, which is now
that I slowed down in the winter, something I've been
(38:06):
working off for the last four months.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
I love it. What the hell? I mean, what am
I gonna do with this knowledge? I don't know. Maybe
to hobby in retirement, I really don't know.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
I mean, the mean that sourdough thing, you know, when
I make a like a sourdough pizza and then cook
it in a wood fire oven, you know. I mean
it's like this. You know, this is something that the
technology has not changed for hundreds of, if not thousands
of years, you know, I mean the fermenting your bread
(38:37):
naturally and then using wood fire. I mean it's like that.
Like we were talking about the beginning of the podcast
about the smell of smoke and pizza. You know, I mean,
why here, Like, why is it such a I mean,
it's just it's there's something instinctual. I mean fire. You know,
we evolved with fire, or fire evolved us one way
(38:58):
or the other. You know, that ability to like cook
food and to control fire is so crucial to like
modern human experience. Yeah, I mean that was what really
hooked me in with robertas was this like just wanting
to master the wood fired oven, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
And I've never done it. I've never cooked in a
wood fired oven. So my context is is the rock box,
to be honest with you, and I still get that
same smell. I set up this whole covered porch in
my back that's actually in the winter and closed on
the sides, and I'm out there all the time, and
I'm entertaining. I'd love to have guests over and cooking
these pieces.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
And well what's cool about that is, I bet if
you did jump into a wood fired oven, you'd basically
you'd be you know, pro day one, because you've you know,
the rock box is basically it's very similar and like
a smaller scale of you know, like how you put
it in and turn it, and the speed of everything
as it's happening, and how you use the flame to
kind of color the crust and you have to rotate
(39:57):
it and you have to check the bottom and all
that stuff is just happening on a bigger scale the
wood oven. But and every wood oven is different. I mean,
you know, I've I've had somewhere it's like you put
the pizza in and you barely have to do anything
where it's like to where it comes out perfect. And
I've had other ones where I had to really fight
to like get the product that I wanted to come
out of the other end of it. And then wood,
(40:19):
you know, wood is also very different from one place
to another. You know, in Turkey, we had the wood
like I was telling him how important it was that
the would be chopped very small. We call triple cut,
you know, in the like if you're talking to a
wood guy and you want to get it, you say
you want a triple cut, it's like about you know,
(40:39):
three inches square. And so the wood guy, they're like
the wood guys here, he wants to talk to you.
So I go out there and they're translating from Turkish
to English and the wood guys there, he's like from
like from the woods of you know, Anatolia, and he's like,
you know, he's like got this truck and this like
big straw hat thing, and he's like looking at me,
(41:01):
very skeptical, and you know, he's like he's like show him.
They're like show him on the truck, which size would
you want? And so like I searched through this truck
and I find this one small piece and he's like
he's rolling his eyes, like you it has to be
that small. Like he's like why. I was like, they're
like and they're like talking to him, and they're like, well,
(41:21):
he's our pizza expert. He came here to teach his
pizza expert and he's and so then he says a
bunch of stuff to them and they say, so he says,
if you're such a pizza expert. Tell him what kind
of wood that this is? And I was like, right,
that's fair, fair enough, and so like I take the
wood and like, I have no idea what kind of
wood it is, but you know, just looking at the
(41:43):
bark and the fact that I've been ordering wood for
a long time, I said, well, it looks to me
it's like some variety of white oak, you know. And
they tell him that, and you know, he looks at
me and he's like, all right, I fine, We'll we'll
deliver the that's small cut wood for you, you know,
because it is one of the biggest things with the
(42:04):
wood oven is to having the right wood that's dry
and it's cut the right way so that you can
get this consistent flame, you know, because otherwise you'll get
coal build up, and then the coal build up will
result in a floor that is too hot but not
enough like radiance.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
So now, though, if you're going to do one of these,
sometimes you're just going to say, for convenience sake, I'm
going propane or gas in the rock box and have
five of them lined up right so I can meet
the demand and the speed and don't want to deal
with that, with five ovens, right, it's okay, decision.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
To make my work right now. With that, like that
instinct in the commercial realm translates into people using electric ovens,
which has oh yeah, since I've started consulting seven years ago.
They revolutionized the pizza world. And I think, yeah, for
what you lose with the sexiness and the mystery and
(42:58):
the beauty of the wood fired oven, you gain in
the ability to focus on your dough and focus on fermentation.
And then the oven itself is really like paint by numbers,
you know. It's like once you dial in your set,
like what style of pizza do you want? Okay, let's
dial the temperature, and then you can control the power
that comes to the bottom of it, the power that
(43:20):
comes to the top of it. And then once you
lock that in, then really all you have to do
is hit your fermentation, build your pizza correctly. You put
it the oven part of it. You put it in,
and you take it out. You don't even turn it, Yeah,
turn it once, you know, and it's I mean, it's
to me, it's great. Like I often think about, you know,
(43:41):
if I were to I mean, because I didn't go
I didn't have like a master plan after Roberta's. You know,
it was a sudden thing. It was a falling out,
you know. So it was not a like something where
I thought I was ever going to leave, you know.
I thought that I was going to be there for
the rest of my life pretty much. But so it
(44:02):
goes and you know, I was like, well, I guess
I'll start to peat my own place, you know, seems
like a good move. And I started looking for places.
But then people were calling me and they were like, hey,
you know, come to Brazil, come to Canada, you know,
come to Lisbon. And it just started stacking up and
within a year that was my full time gig. But
(44:25):
I think often and I dream about opening my own place,
and I often my biggest debate is whether I would
go electric or would which there's the only two choices
for me.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Take it from me, Tony, don't a restaurant for me. Yeah,
I agree with you. I'm only kadding I'm throwing back
at you.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
No, no, my wife, my wife would agree with you
for sure. But I dream about it a lot. And
but I would go back and forth between those two
because I.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Mean, if I was doing a restaurant thing.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
I from what I'm the little I know about the
electric and talking to people, it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
But I guess in my mind, I'm still there's this
guy uh in London peddling pizzas who uses the domes,
Who's got a truck full of Gosney domes. Yeah, I
guess part of me just keeps envisioning because it's closer
to what I do now.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
It's like being outside.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
And racking up these a bunch of those rock boxes
with domes.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Yeah. I mean it's tough with the thing with us
is I don't I don't necessarily even know how you
would do that because we always had a home base, you.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Know exactly, And this is getting to the weeds and
I don't even know if this is part of your
thing butt like like for me right now, one of
my obstacles is in a way lack of a home
base because you need all these permits.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
I think you could fly under the radar at certain
types of things, but there's a lot of them you can't,
and they're doing inspections and stuff. So if you're going
out of state, even when you with Robertus and you're
a New York based pizzeria restaurant, how do you bake
in Texas?
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Well, this it took a lot. It was a lot
of you know, I did a lot of planning ahead
of time, you know, so I would have to in
the case of doing something like south By Southwest, you know,
I had to find I had to find a place
to make a home base, a temporary one in pay
for it.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Aha.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
So I found like a commercial bakery where they made like,
you know, cookies that you would sell at a like
at the supermarket. I goas literally they made Texas shaped
cookies at this place, and all kinds of other stuff.
And so they had you know, a place for us
to load in. They had you know, the size of
(46:53):
the mixers we'd need to do like a thousand pizzas
a day, you know, to prepare everything. They had enough
they had extra refrige duration space. I mean, because you
can't just like rent a place that's already like functioning,
you know, because most plays are maxed out, you know,
so you really have to find either a commissary kitchen
that specializes in in having like being like a communal
(47:15):
kitchen or a commercial bakery that just has you know,
some your amount that you're doing for your little pop
up is not like an impact their major their operation.
So I did that one year. Another year we did
a commercial, like a communal commercial space. And yeah, I
mean it's a lot of logistics, you know. It's it's
a lot of logistics, you know. And and that's where
(47:36):
again like film production, but I've seen I've seen the
you know it, like good producers have these like super
type timelines, and they're problem solvers and they are researchers,
and they are experts at lots of you know, random
things like you know, like location scout, yeah, or like
(47:59):
you know, how to use a ratchet strap and stuff
like that, you know, and so you learn from your
mistakes and you try not to repeat them, you know,
and do it better, you know. Yeah, And that's really
what prepared me more than anything for what I do now,
because it's it's not so much about the specific you know,
(48:19):
pizza that I'm making, or even pizza. I mean, I
think I could probably do a good job consulting on
like a place someone opening a taco restaurant, because you know,
it's it's really about like having done everything so many times,
and it's you know, been fucked up that, Like I
know what refrigeration not to buy? Like what you know,
(48:42):
how to not lay a place out? Like, you know,
just a lot of mistakes that I've made, trying to
like constantly you know, do these different one off things.
They were always different and I always had too a
learning from from one thing, you know.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yeah, two last questions.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
If the restaurant business isn't the way to go, and
you half joking but seriously kind of advise against it,
what is the way in the food business?
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Like what is in breadmaking pizza?
Speaker 3 (49:23):
God, I don't know. I like giving it away for free,
That's my favorite thing to do. I just gotta figure out.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
Did you like the frozen end of the Roberts thing?
Speaker 3 (49:32):
Frozen's tough, man, because it's like you've really got to
scale big and those big corporate players are not messing around.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
You know.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
You hear about big like you hear about small food
brands getting bought, but like you don't hear about all
of the efforts of those big corporations to kill those
brands before they have to buy them. You know, margins
are tight. Everything is is really like you know, is
skewed to advantage the huge corporations that are involved, some
(50:01):
of the biggest companies in the world like Nesley, Unilever,
Craft you know. I mean these are monster global entities,
you know, and they make lots of money on frozen pizza.
And what makes you think they're gonna let you just
move in on their racket?
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Of course?
Speaker 3 (50:15):
You know, sure, Like so, you know, the restaurant industry
is much more fragmented. You know, Domino's is more of
a series of small restaurants than it is a like
global behemoth like you know, Red Barn. So you know,
(50:36):
I think it's I would, I think it's interesting frozen pizza.
I think it's also interesting making products that are you know,
that have like good solid ingredients like incorporating frozen pizza,
like frozen pizza that has sour dough or whole grains
or things like that. But to me, it's not like
the smart money. I mean, to me, the smart money
(50:57):
and opening a restaurant, like yeah, I mean i'd say,
like go to a like a b market, right, so
like not New York, not Los Angeles, not Chicago, you know,
go to a Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
What I was talking about.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
Yeah, like go to I mean there's so many like
you know, go to Nashville or you know, Denver or
something like that, and just bring great pizza there and
keep it simple. Start very simple. Like all you have
to do is look at who's successful, and you know
what do they focus on? Takeout and delivery. I think
(51:32):
that's a big thing that you Where you can be
successful is if you can if you can have a
small dining room and really focus on takeout and delivery
and make figure out a model that makes money that way.
But at the end of the day, the thing to
do is, you know, the thing that's going to get
you through the hard times, the thing that's a that's
a obsession more than it is a you know, chasing money.
(51:54):
You want to be chasing a dream. You know, if
your dream is to wake up and cook in a
wood fired of and every day, then you know, if
you can pay the bills, then you're fine.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
You know.
Speaker 3 (52:04):
Like for me, I love to travel. I love to
meet new people, and you know, I love to the challenges.
You know, I like people asking me for advice. You know,
I like to research new ingredients and new techniques and
so I'm I'm able to make a living and feed
(52:25):
my family, you know, And and I'm very I feel
very blessed for that. But yeah, I mean it's like
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna
be rich anytime soon, you know, Like, and I don't care.
What do I want to be rich for? Like we
had a great apartment in New York. You know, I
got a cool truck.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Like, and you've got a great family. Yeah, exactly, You're rich.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
You're just rich.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
White is my business partner? Who's the best? You know,
so's living the dream over here, Bud love it.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
Last question, can you tell me and our listeners about
one of your most memorable meals? It could be the
company and why. It could be the company, it could
be the food, it could be the ambiance. But is
there a meal that might stand out that was really
(53:18):
memorable for some reason?
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (53:22):
So many?
Speaker 2 (53:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (53:27):
I think a real high point for me was I
did a pop up in Mexico City and we were
also filming a pilot and you know, the show didn't
get made. You know, there's a lot of a lot
of pilots get made, a lot of them don't get
turned into shows. But it was a cool thing to
shoot it in Mexico City. You know, I chose Mexico
(53:47):
City because like Mexico City was really the first global city.
You know, it's ground zero for like the Columbian Exchange,
and you know, the idea was to explore the origin
of you know, pizza by going there and looking into tomatoes. Anyways,
we did the pop up, we shot the thing. It
was great, and so we had like our wrap lunch,
you know, and you know that you know the feeling,
(54:09):
the great feeling of a good rap lunch because you know,
it's not like a restaurant, like a project now where
like you know, I I set it up and then
that the beginning is is just now. Like we did
the pop up, we shot the thing, it's all done.
And so we went to this place called Barrelsa and
it's like it's a in the downtown Mexico City and
(54:34):
it's an old It was a Spanish style restaurant in
in Mexico City. After the Spanish Civil War, a lot
of leftists and socialists moved to Mexico City and some
of them started bookshops and some of them started restaurants.
And this was just a really cool, big restaurant and
they had like it was like the Spanish food had
(54:54):
slowly evolved to Mexican taste. So there was also these
like really spicy you know, salsa. But it was this
big table of you know, really interesting people like me
Wei who owns this pizza place, and uh Pizza Police
in Mexico City, who she's just a brilliant chef. And
then the film crew was there and we were eating
like this whole beef shank, you know, with tortillas, and
(55:16):
there was like this chariso and I mean it was
just incredible. And then we all had you know, we
had some cocktails and then some kind of heels at
the end, and it was just like, yeah, it was
I felt. I felt at that point like I really
I was living the dream, you know.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
And you were with people you worked really hard with
all week. There was a lot of hope, it's cool. Great, Yeah,
love it, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Well, listen, I really appreciate you spending some time with me.
It's an honor to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
It was great talking to you. We gotta we got
to actually, like you know, get a get a coffee
or a glass of wine sometime and go go deeper.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
I would love to man, you're in Brooklyn, Yeah, Williams
work all right?
Speaker 2 (55:59):
Cool man, all right? Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (56:02):
Yeah, great talking you. Thanks for reaching out, and best
of luck for your podcast. I look forward to seeing
your future episodes and thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (56:13):
This episode of Bread for the People was brought to
you by Side Hustle Bread, Long Island's handcrafted, artisanal bread company.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
Side Hustle Bread is.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
A family run business that's bringing the neighborhood feel back
to Long Island, one loaf at a time. If you
like what you're hearing, don't forget to head on over
to iTunes and rate and review this episode. Reviewing and
rating is the most effective way.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
To help us grow our audience.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
This episode was produced by Milestone TV and Film. I'm
your host, Jim Surperco. Less it be the bread, everyone,
The following episode of Bread for the People is brought
to you by Side Hustle Bread, Long Island's handcrafted, artisanal
bread company. Side Hustle Bread is a family run virtual
bakery that's bringing the neighborhood feel back to Long Island,
one loaf at a time. Head on over to side
Hustlebread dot com for more information, upcoming appearances and merchandise.
My name's Jim Curpico. And this should I start with
(00:24):
my name? Or should I start with this? Is Bread
for the People. Do you like it like this? Welcome
to bread?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Or do you like it like this? Welcome Ready, Welcome
to Bread for the people? Mind fuck? Is there a script.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
For the people?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Welcome to Bread for the People.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I'm Jim Curproico, my guest today is the author of Pizzazar.
He's made pizza all over the world. He's a full
service restaurant consultant with a focus on pizza. He creates
world class pizza brands from the ground up, including custom
equipment design, so sourcing, local ingredients, expertise on pizza ovens
(01:11):
and tools, installation, ventilation, menu development, kitchen design, on site training,
brand positioning, and more. Tony Falco welcome to bread for
the people.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Thanks for having me. You are excited talk bread and bread.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
We're gonna get to bread. We're gonna get to bread.
You are a legend.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
It sounds from what I've read about you that we
both grew up in households where our dads were characters. Okay,
So when I was a kid, and I'm talking like
ten eleven, I would crawl in the front seat of
my dad's Cadillac because the doors were never were never locked,
(01:58):
and I would find under the front seat tire irons, knives, blackjacks,
and occasionally a bullet. Now, as far as I knew,
my father was a trumpet player, and he was, but
there were nights he would come home literally with the
(02:19):
window shot out.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Wow. And he was a trumpet.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Player for what they called the New York club dates
and weddings, and he owned the company. And it was
like DJ companies today, whether they would have five or
six bands out of a night. And he was a
house band at mob catering halls and those were his buddies. Now,
I'm not romanticizing or glamorizing or condoning. It is what
(02:47):
it is, and it partly shaped who I am today,
not that I'm involved in any of that, but obviously
there's certain things that kind of rub off or you
have to make choices out of young From what I
know about you, your father was into some stuff a
little different, which put you on a path to have
(03:09):
to go to work at a very young age.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Yeah, that's correct. It's it's interesting because I mean I
think in some ways, you know, that experience was part
of this whole like unorthodox kind of path in life
that has been like always there for me and for him.
Because yeah, I mean, you know, you you would want
(03:35):
to really like sum it up quickly and say, okay,
you know this my dad guy Sicilian American who had
you know, was involved in some things, but it was
very different, you know. I mean there was no it
was a hippie too, you know, and he was he
(03:55):
was a hash smuggler, which now is like a you know,
like a legal profession and like you know, like and
he I think he always thought it was going to
be legal, but he was just off by it like
thirty years or something. But in general, it was very
much like into Buddhism and non violence and like his
(04:17):
whole thing was like, you know, he I think he
knew people in the world of various mobs, would you know,
be an Italian American or Mexican or Southeast Asian or whatever.
I think he I think he operated in that world.
But he his form of armor and protection was karmic
(04:38):
nonviolent energy, if that makes any sense, because his whole
thing was like he felt like if people, you know,
wanted to use cannabis, that it might make them more
peaceful and then maybe make the world more peaceful. And
day he's been a vegetarian for like fifty years or
something like that, you know, and he jeh jeat definitely
(04:58):
very It definitely shaped my life. He'd left, you know,
he had to go on the run, like in the
when I when I just first got into high school.
So yeah, I had to start working very early on.
My mom is from Baltimore, from a working class family
in inner city Baltimore, and she, you know, she was
(05:19):
very very tough lady, still is very tough lady. And
she gave me a really strong work ethic. You know,
it was like there was not I mean, I always
liked to side hustle, but she was very insistent that
I get a job and you know, nothing too fancy.
She's like, it'd probably be good for you to clean
some toilets, you know, probably be good for you to
(05:39):
do some real manual labor. And I think it was,
you know, and I I really enjoy working. And that's
where restaurants really kind of kind of stuck into my life.
Is I just really enjoyed the people and that work,
real work where you could look at days work and
see it. I worked in briefly in the tech world
(06:01):
and in some offices, and it just it's not for everybody.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
You know, definitely not speaking of loving the work and
the camaraderie, I think you're referring to. You have a
quote from the book that says I loved hanging out
at the bar with friends after I'd smell like a
cross between a fresh baked pizza and a campfire.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
It was awesome. I love that smell.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Yeah, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Totally relate to what you're talking about. I don't know
what it is about it. Maybe it's because you know,
you put in those long hours and that's the result,
and it does it smells like the place you want
to be. I get it, man, I get it. And
I also get that you kind of found camaraderie through
(06:49):
the restaurant business, which is something I long for because
I found I have found camaraderie through the TV business.
I don't have a television show shooting right now, and
as a television show creator in that profession, you don't
always have a show right There could be many years
and gaps, and you miss having something for five to
(07:13):
seven years with the same people every day and working
those long hours and then seeing that finished product even
though you're exhausted.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Camaraderie was one of the best parts of it.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And since I started doing the food semi professionally, I've
been doing it as a lone wolf, and I kind
of long for figuring out a way to get into
a situation where I could build a team and have
that camaraderie.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah, I mean, I have intersected with production people through
my work. Used to do a lot of music festivals,
so used to do a lot of you know, we
would do some catering for film and things like that,
and I've been like shot some TV shows and pilots
(08:01):
and things like that, and I do there's definitely a connection.
It's like it, you know, when I was talking about
like that. It's it's not so much that necessarily that
we want to do this specific thing. It's more that
we just don't fit in into the regular you know
world of like it was kind of like school. You know,
It's like I liked school all right, but like I
(08:22):
didn't like the learning and the reading and you know
that part of school I like, but like the like
sitting in a you know, sitting here when you they
tell you to sit here, and going here when they
tell you to do Like I like the you know,
there's always something different I feel like and then also
that you did the work needs to be done no
(08:43):
matter what. You know, there's no like, Okay, well we'll
put this off until tomorrow. It's like there's the kind
of insanity of like production work, and whether it be
in the restaurant business or in your film and TV world,
is that people were just there's this attitude of like, hey,
we're just gonna do what we got to do to
make this happen.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
To me that that kind of lifestyle I just and
the people that that lifestyle attracted I think was very cool,
you know, And I always wanted to do like a
you know, TV even film. I was a big film
nerd as a like kid growing up in the nineties.
Like I mean, I loved movies it, you know, I
really loved you know what they would have called in
(09:25):
the nineties, like indie cinema.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I remember seeing like Lain in the in the movie
theater in ninety six. Uh, you know, link letters stuff
because I grew up in Austin, you know, Rob Rodriguez,
like Quin Tarantino obviously, I mean, and then you know,
grew up with my dad with showing me like Godfather
and Goodfellas and all that stuff and all the great
(09:48):
Italian American cinema stuff. I loved Coursawa, huge, huge band
and tried to work my way through as much of
the class. I mean. Once, you know, when you you like,
you find a movie that you love and then you say, wow,
I mean, if you like Reservoir Dogs, you know, you
should watch Le Samurai, you know, and then it's like
(10:10):
now you're in this like kind of like peeling back
layers of history and going back through it, you know,
and you know, oh, you think Star Wars is cool, Wait,
you should see Hidden Fortress, you know, and it's like
like that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
It just it's endless, right, Yeah, isn't it the same
with bread making and pizza making?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
In a way?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Absolutely, it's the same thing exactly. It's like, you know,
if you get you know, Paul Bertoli's you know, Cooking
by Hand and you love that book, it's like, well,
you know, get Marcella his End's Essentials of Italian Cooking,
and you go back and you go back, and then
it's how to Cook a Wolf, and then it's like,
you know, you start peeling back the layers and then
there's you know, there's stuff that it's even more hard
(10:50):
to find in deeper cuts, and you know, it's addictive,
you know.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
And then it goes the other way too.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It's like I was talking to another guest who really
talks of the philosophy of mastering like the basic Actually
you talk about it too, You talk about mastering a
base before you move on to toppings. You know, she
talks about it in reference to dough and simple sour
dough and like, really master your sour dough, your basic sourdough,
(11:16):
and once you get that down, start swapping out ingredients there, right,
So it goes the other way, and then you start
building a repertoire off of the base, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Mean, and just like the appreciation for simplicity, you know,
which is I think the core of Italian cuisine is
simplicity of taking great ingredients and not messing them up,
you know, and like having a rhythm with the seasonality,
you know. I mean, I think that was something that
(11:49):
I learned in the restaurant world, you know, definitely seasonality
and farm to table cooking. I learned a lot of
Robertas and Vinegar Hill and these places I cooked at.
But at the same time, you know, it was something
that I had a reference point for because you know,
when it was gogots this season, that was like all
we ate for a few months and everyone was super
(12:10):
excited about it, and then the favas would you know,
we're coming, and then you know, it's like art choke
season and that kind of it comes and it goes.
And I think that you're a lot of people who
aren't like super passionate about food, you know, in living
the modern American society, go to the grocery store and
it's just you know, it's the same thing all year round.
(12:32):
They don't understand the pulse of nature and how you know,
when you eat an eggplant that's in season, it's a
big difference from just that thing that's there all year round,
like or tomato. You know, like it's this reverence for
you know, the impermanence of this like cycle of nature.
I think is it comes down to simplicity, because like
(12:54):
you know, when you talk about like a tomato season,
you get a great tomato, Like what's the best recipe
for it is just pick it while it's still warm
from the sun and slice it, put a little salt
and olive oil on it, walk away. I mean that's
the best, you know.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, yeah, But I guess we live these busy lives
and most people just I mean, I don't.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I don't blame them for not knowing.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
It's hard for people to discover that in this day
and age unless you really have an interest in it.
And I guess they're not realizing they're shipping these tomatoes
in from all over the world depending on what time
of year it is.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
There's a lot of intentional obfuscation by big corporate you know,
food businesses. But I think, you know, we're in a
we're in a golden age of bread and I think
seasonal cooking right now in the United States, I mean,
and I think we're definitely in a golden age for pizza.
I mean, people are all over the country. I mean,
(13:48):
they're you know, there's there's no longer like a monopoly
on great pizza when it comes to you know, the
East Coast, and you know, it's it's really just not
only all over the United States, but I'm just more
and more seeing all around the world people just really
you know, making great pizza. I mean, and it to me,
it starts with the dough. And there's a somewhat of
(14:10):
a debate amongst pizza makers whether pizza is bread or not.
And like, I think that's kind of a silly question.
That's obviously bread, I mean to.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Me, And but why I know, I'm I'm really new
to this, but it's so much of the same techniques
I used to making my sour dough then you know
that I used for making my pizza.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I mean, there's no question there at all to me.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
But before we get into some of that, which I
do want to talk about, I want to talk about Roburders.
You know, they are unbelievably great pizza restaurant. At the
time you worked there you were telling the stories about
a couple guys that were really great, and one of
them didn't have the best bedside manner.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I don't remember who that is.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I think I think it was there.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Somewhere the guy would like kind of scream at you
about the doll or.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I don't work it was some code I read.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
But the bottom line is, you got you got the
skills out of them, right, these guys.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, I mean I got a lot of things out
of it. You know, I'm really happy that Roberta has
continued success also all around the world now and still,
you know, maintain friendships with a lot of great pizza
makers that work there. You know, even people that I
worked with are still there.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
But in the early days, was it that there was
not really a chain of command and no one taken accountability.
Was that the restaurant where someone said either step up
and take charge?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Yeah, Well, it wasn't a lot of people, and it
was one room, and it wasn't very busy, and you know,
I was just kind of making pizza part time, bouncing around.
I hadn't even decided to dedicate myself fully to I mean,
I didn't know what to do with my life. I
was in my late twenties and I had met the
owners while I was bartending, and you know, yeah, I
(16:00):
mean I think it was Brandon that said to me, like,
you know, if you want to be a man, be
a man. And you know, my work now as a consultant,
like the main thing I do is like go into
an environment of chaos and try to create order, you know, right,
and try to keep create like operating procedures and try
(16:21):
to create consistency in the product. And in the beginning,
there was a lot of a lot of artistry and
you know, there wasn't a lot of consistency, and there
wasn't even really a you know, an idea for what
the pizza should be. Like it was, you know, it
was a little free form, which I think is a
good thing. You know, at first, I don't think you
can do that anymore now because you know, the cycle
(16:43):
of review and like people coming in with camera phone.
I mean there was no camera phones really back then.
I mean, if there were, it was limited. And so
you know, you get a little bit of time as
a new restaurant to kind of like improve and learn
on the job, whereas now I feel like you've got
to be. You got to have the product dialed in
(17:05):
right when you open, because it's like people are going
to come in and just the cycle is just so fast.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
And then you don't want to get a negative review
out of the gate. Otherwise it's it's yeah, it's tough.
I actually found my notes on that name, and forgive me,
I'm gonna Butcher's name, and I hope it's the right restaurant.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Nor Sugio, is that it? Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
He would say to you if he didn't like your pizza,
This pizza to me is shit. Oh oh oh, malo okay, yeah, malo.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah. Malro was like one of the original partners from
Italy and no, he was great, but he was an artist,
you know, and he would say this all the time.
He's like, I'm an artist. I'm not a pizza maker,
you know. Yeah, but you got to make pizza. And
he had lots of great recipes and techniques and stuff
like that, but like, yeah, he's an artist, you know.
And so it was a little to me, it was
(17:58):
like I need a little more kind of order, so
like and then they, yeah, they they made me the
first manager. In the informal way that it happened and
you know, I kind of floated in and out after
that a little bit. And uh, and then when I
bought this pizza oven, you know, I came back into
the fold. And eventually they gave me, after a few years,
(18:22):
the title pizzas Are They gave me that title. You know,
I think it's kind of a silly title.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
But was that Do you think it was a compliment
or were they busting you chops or.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
I think they might have been busting my job. I mean,
I think it was also a very real like need
because now, like at that time, the company had, you know,
a restaurant they had to take out and delivery, They
had mobile operations, catering, a frozen pizza company was being developed,
you know, and so you know, you needed someone who
could kind of float around all those worlds, you know.
(18:54):
And I think that I wasn't in the restaurant all
the time because of that, because sometimes it was in
the frozen pizza factory, or sometimes it was at a
music festival, you know, But like I was at all
of the off side stuff. So you know, when we
popped up in Brazil, I was there, When we were
in Toronto, was there Miami Basel was there Bannu there.
I did so of these music festivals.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
You would literally open a kioska booth and fire up
and make fresh pizzas.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Yeah, we had a wood fired oven. I bought the
first one, and then we eventually had like a fleet
of three and we would pull them in and create. Like,
I really learned a lot about dough and a lot
about pizza making doing the mobile operations, because you know,
when you are in a building and it's somewhat of
a safe you know, consistent time and temperature and all
(19:45):
that stuff. You know, you you kind of can only
know the variables that you have, but like when you're
out in the while, yeah, and in their rain. Not
only that, but like trying to do you know, a
pop up in like I learned a lot, like doing
the first south By Southwest pop up. It was in
Austin where I bought the first oven, that the mobile oven.
(20:08):
You know, there was just different ingredients in Texas, you know,
I had to find different Like I tried to use
fresh East when I first made pizza there like we
did in New York, but like nobody else uses fresh East,
so it was it had expired unbeknownst to me. So
then the next day after the first test batch, you know,
it was just a pancake or it was a tortilla.
It hadn't it hadn't risen at all. So you know,
(20:31):
I had to learn all these kind of different I
had to learn all kinds of you know, what are
all the variables that are included. Like when I went
to Brazil with Roberta's, you know, I had to I mean,
that's a whole new world, but it's a you know,
also a pizza world, so they had pizza ingredients. And
when I went to Toronto, I did a pop up
there and and you know, had like monzarell occurred, is
(20:54):
a very common thing on the East Coast and in
the United States. It they didn't really have it in
so I had a hard time finding that to do
the fresh Monzarello, and I had to use the you know,
they have the Canadian flowers, so you know, seeing how
and that really prepared me for And that's what you know,
the bizarre thing was for It's like, you know, we
(21:15):
can just send him to a different city and he
will recreate Roberta's pizza with you know, just the knowledge
of the base from being in the restaurant for so long,
but then also going out and doing it.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
So I have an interest in that myself.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
You know, my bread making right now is kind of
relegated to the weekends in local farmers' markets. But I've
been making more and more pizza with the guys and
these stuff, and as I get deeper into this, I
am interested in in doing that in person.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
It's tough. It's a young man's game too. Yeah, take
any any amount of hours that you want to operate,
and then tack on a few hours of transportation and
then going back to the home base and cleaning everything,
and then like the physicality of just being outside and
having to pick everything up and move it. I mean
(22:10):
it was. It was some crazy hours. You know. I
had a bunch of really great people on my team
that had stuck with me through all those years. We
were like a little group within the group the mobile operations.
I can imagine we were like the it's the special Forces.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
I probably have to team up with someone, like you said,
because I am this lone wolf and I'm not the
youngest guy. But I will tell you that on my weekends, man,
I'm putting a lot of time in because I'm doing
the baking and I'm manning the booth.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
It's a lot and it's physical. Yeah, it's physical.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
People don't realize lugging the fifty pound sacks of flour,
lugging the booth set up, loading the car, climbing in
and out.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Well, at least you have the rock boxes now, you know,
Because I mean I when I first bought that oven,
that was like really the only option for like doing
really good, you know, wood fired pizza. And it was
I mean for the price for like whatever twenty thousand
dollars that oven, when you could buy the whole setup
(23:17):
and like five rocks boxes side by side, which will
give you the same cooking capacity, yeah, as one of
those portable ovens. But I gotta tell you, there was
nothing better in my entire cooking career, you know, from
then and now, nothing was better or more satisfying than
cooking pizza in a wood fired oven with nothing but
(23:38):
blue skies above me, and on like a beautiful spring
day with perfect weather, you know. I mean, it was
just and if all the preparation had been done ahead
of time, and I had a good crew and we
were going and we're just cranking pizzas out. I mean,
that was really it was the best experience, you know,
of my cooking career, and I don't think, I don't
know if I could match that. It was just really amazing,
(24:00):
especially when we were doing things like you know, Freeze
Artfare or south By Southwest, and it was just there
was all this energy around us, you know, it was
really amazing. It was an amazing time.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
And you know, like, I guess I'm young enough in
my bread baking career, like literally three years in you
don't know what you don't know, so you don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I kind of know.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
But I'm willing to pay my dues man, even though
I'm a middle aged guy. I know, I'm new to
this business, and I want to do the work. I
want to learn the art and I want to do
the work so that I am ultimately an expert in it.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yeah, I mean, that's all it takes. It's never too
late to start. All it takes is the passion, you know,
and I you know, but yeah, I mean, those eighteen
hour days don't just roll off my back like they
used to. But now luckily I have I get it
in doses, you know, so I'll be like I just
spent ten days on site with my client in DC,
(25:09):
and then I get a day or two rest and
I'm back here in my home base in the office.
I'm doing reports and work for other clients and follow
up and you know, I get a little body recovery
and get to like, you know, flex some of my
other skills besides just being you know, a grunt. But
you know, in those early days of in a restaurant startup,
(25:31):
I mean it's like not you don't have like staffing
sometimes hard. So sometimes I'm doing dishes till you know,
two in the morning, which fine by me. Dishwashing was
one of my favorite jobs. Still is something very satisfying
about you know, it's meditating.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
You're zoning in on I do it. I have to
do it.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
You have to do it. There's no choice, you have
to do it.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, I really want to set the stage for the
listeners now though that day understand what it is you
really do. Now, Okay, you talked about being in DC,
So we'll play both ends of the stick here, which
may not be too far from a reality. I'm gonna
wanna be restaurant tour. I'm gonna call a guy I'm
(26:17):
not a guy like you, I'm gonna call you. You are
the guy. Okay, people must understand this. This isn't a
random guy. This is the guy that you call anywhere
in the world when you want to open up a
pizza related restaurant, right, And I'll be very honest, my
dream not that I don't know that I'll ever get there,
(26:38):
but it would be bread slash pizza based. And I see,
I see like the Facacia sandwiches and the porchetta into
the stuff you post Like that's slam in the middle
of what I want to do, you know, with the
pizza and the neapolitan ish but those types of sandwiches, breakfast, lunch, dinner. Yeah,
(26:58):
and you can do it anywhere in the country, in
the world. It's not the water blah blah blah. But
now to you at what stage, like some of these
guys who opened a restaurant, how many years of in
the planning is it?
Speaker 3 (27:13):
I mean, I think the longest project was almost four years,
five years before it opened the doors opened, you know.
The shortest from the time of engagement to opening was like,
you know, four months.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
But that was just well, that was that's my partners
in Brazil who are extremely on it, Like they've got
forty restaurants and bars. They are one hundred percent professionals,
which you know, that was a very speedy opening. But
generally the time when someone wants to like engage my
services is if you have are about to sign a lease,
(27:53):
or you've just sound signed a lease, and you have
this ideally, you have a blank slate, and I work
with you to design a kitchen layout, a flow that's
going to be efficient and that is going to match
the style of pizza that you want to do, the
service style that you want to do with the where
you are, the location where you are, and then we
(28:16):
design the menu and the kitchen simultaneously, and then we
start working on the challenge of sourcing. And you know
that's sometimes it's really you know, well, it's never easy,
but sometimes it's, uh.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Well, listen where I live. It's got to be a
lot easier. I live in Long Island. Yeah, We've got
access to everything, right, it's got to be pretty easy
relative to opening a pizza place in Montana, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Or Guyana. Yeah. But then there's like places that you
might think of, you know, because of what I do
is like I I you know, I never do the
same pizza recipe twice. You know, I've never I never
like sold the Roberta's pizza recipe to anyone, you know,
because hey, it's in the cookbook. So anyway, and the
(29:08):
New York Times video that I did with Sam Sifton
that has like ten million views or something like that.
So like we we let the recipe out a long
time ago, but you know, it wasn't mine, first of all,
and then second of all, I didn't want to do
it anymore. You know, I wanted to do something different,
and so I and I want to do something different
everywhere I go. So like when I was in DC
(29:28):
just now, you know, we were using some flour from
Wade's Mill, which is in Virginia. It's been milling stone
milling flowers since seventeen fifty. Incredible, incredible stuff, right, you know.
One of the most amazing projects I was ever a
part of that I was very lucky to be a
part of, was in Istanbul called Juicina, and Istanbul is
(29:49):
like a perfect place to make pizza because it's the Mediterranean,
so and it's where Turkey is, you know, where flower
originates from. So they have every variety. It's a real
bread culture, you know, so there's every kind of flower
you could imagine.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
I was.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
My clients were amazing. They were already soured oat bakers,
so like we we we could just go to the
advanced stage of the project. They had local cheeses, local meats,
The vegetables were incredible, the herbs were incredible. And then
take like Mediterranean something like Greece or Sicily or southern Italy.
But then add a layer onto that of like the
(30:25):
you know, the connection that they have with the Middle
East and the spice trade, and you know, you have
all these like interesting spices and and you know, so
it was, it was incredible. And then you know, contrast
that was like a place like you know, Bangkok, where
it's not a bread culture, it's a rice culture. They
(30:47):
don't really grow wheat there, you know, so you're starting
and they don't have a long history of cheese eating
and making. You know that it's not the best place
to grow tomatoes. So you're starting like already kind of
as at a deficit, and so you have to get creative,
you know. But uh, you know that's where that's where
(31:10):
the fun really starts.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
You know.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, and I guess the same principles go for within
the continental US, you know, bringing it to to like
South Carolina, where a lot of people from the East
are moving, so there's probably a need for it and
it's probably less saturated like where I live. I mean,
in my town alone, we must have twelve pizza reaes, right,
(31:34):
and you know, most of them are actually pretty good.
Even though I do agree with something you said in
the book about how there are a lot of bad
playing pizza places in New York. I've gotten in debates
with people about this.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Yeah, I've not. I've not been an uncontroversial character in
the pizza world. Yeah, partly just from just speaking my
what I like, my mind and what I think is true.
I'm not realizing how I'm upset it will make people.
I'm not trying to make anyone upset, you know, or
or like, you know, talk bad about anything. But you know,
(32:09):
I mean, it's just a basic fact that like there's
a vast amount of pizza places in New York and
that you know, they're not all great, like some of
them are really really outstanding, and that you know, I mean,
I'm from Austin, Texas and there's tons and tons of
Mexican restaurants, tons and tons of tex mex restaurants. You know,
(32:31):
there's like five or six that I would recommend to someone.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Sure, that's just well, like I said, I said, some
of these guys are just trying to make money right over,
you know, being artists.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Sure, that's it. I mean, it is what it is.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Especially, you know, I do worry, like I'm sitting here
and I'm doing this in Long Island, and I've looked
into retail stuff, but the cost per scure is so crazy,
and there's so many pizza places, and out of those
pizza places, there's a lot of good ones. Like what
(33:08):
would be the point? You know, what would excite me
is trying to bring it somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Well, I think the smart money is in the Southeast
or the mid Atlantic because there's just so much money
and then the cost of opening it is. But I mean,
the smart money is not in the restaurant business in
the first place. So I mean, it's like the I
try to talk most of my clients out of starting
a restaurant when they first called me. It's definitely there's
(33:36):
a lot easier ways to make money. I mean, but
if you have a passion for food, you know why,
like or if you really are you want to do
something that will make people happy, then that's the reason.
That's the reason to do it, you know. And pizza
in the in the like segment of all restaurants is
(33:56):
going to have a higher success rate than you know,
if you wanted to open you know, some kind of
like I don't know, like obscure style, like you know,
I want to do like West Virginian cuisine, you know
in the East village. You know, it's like, well that's
(34:17):
going to go over, you know. But you know, pizza
anywhere pizza is is the world's most favorite food. And
as someone who's really into history, I think it's because
it is the world's food. The world had to come
together to create it. There's no pizza without the Colombian exchange,
with the tomatoes coming from the New World to the
Old World, with you know, buff water buffalo coming from
(34:41):
India to you know, Italy some random way Basil originating
Southeast Asia. I mean, it all comes together, you know
in Italy. Sure, But like it's not even the Italians
that spread pizza around the world. It's the Italian Americans
the diaspora or even the non Italian America who you know,
(35:02):
innovated with technology like conveyor ovens and whatever you say
about you know, whatever you have to say about like
Domino's and Pizza Hut. You know, they have spread pizza
around the world, whether you call it real or not.
I mean it's it's they their technology and their you know,
drive to create it. And it was it was really
(35:22):
I think until the eighties that the Neapolitans kind of
were like, Okay, wait, this is our thing, like we
should be you know, like kind of taking this back,
you know, And I think it's it's cool to see
the waves of how it happens. It is the same
thing happened with coffee, you know. I mean you have
like like coffee, various waves of coffee culture spreading, and.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah, and beer, you know, yeah, those are my three
favorite things.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I would love to combine them all.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean that's that would be that
would be great. I mean it would look at like,
you know, that's the dream, right, It's like someone like
my one of my heroes in the pizza world, Anthony Mangieri.
You know, that's what he's got. Now, it's uh, he's
got arguably the best Neapolitan pizzeria and in America, if
not the world. I mean, I think he was named
(36:13):
best in the world by the fifty Best List. And
then now he's got the Neapolitan Cafe in the morning
where he does coffee Naples style coffee and pastries.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
I mean, that's what makes sense to me, just like
common sense wise is always what I thought of.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Yeah, and he does it out of just a passion
for you know, what he does in the culture, and
you know, and he's been doing sourdough pizza for decades,
you know, and and just you know, just just such
a hard working, awesome guy. I mean, I think it's
really the you know, the to me, you know, the
(36:48):
best of the pizza makers, I think. And yeah, I
have a lot of respect for for what he does
and anyone who is following their passion, whether I you know,
whether it's the kind of pizza I like or not.
I mean I like, you know, pretty much all of it,
as long as it's made with love, you know, you know,
you know the places where they love is an absent ingredient,
(37:10):
you know.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Isn't it the same in most careers it's like you
want to be an actor. They're really doing it to
become rich. I mean, I try to advise young people
like that is absolutely the wrong reason to do that
or any of this, because the chances are it's not
gonna make you rich. It's just the reality, guys, and
people hate to hear that, but it is the way
(37:31):
it is. Yeah, I mean, you gotta love it. You
gotta want to wake up in the morning to do
this shit. I fucking love waking up in the morning
and going to a farmer's market.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yeah, I really do.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
I love to see the result of my work that night,
and I love the customers. And I don't know, there's
something about conquering the sourdough thing and I feel good
about myself that I was able to do it, or
and finally learn how to use poolish, which is now
that I slowed down in the winter, something I've been
(38:06):
working off for the last four months.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
I love it. What the hell? I mean, what am
I gonna do with this knowledge? I don't know. Maybe
to hobby in retirement, I really don't know.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
I mean, the mean that sourdough thing, you know, when
I make a like a sourdough pizza and then cook
it in a wood fire oven, you know. I mean
it's like this. You know, this is something that the
technology has not changed for hundreds of, if not thousands
of years, you know, I mean the fermenting your bread
(38:37):
naturally and then using wood fire. I mean it's like that.
Like we were talking about the beginning of the podcast
about the smell of smoke and pizza. You know, I mean,
why here, Like, why is it such a I mean,
it's just it's there's something instinctual. I mean fire. You know,
we evolved with fire, or fire evolved us one way
(38:58):
or the other. You know, that ability to like cook
food and to control fire is so crucial to like
modern human experience. Yeah, I mean that was what really
hooked me in with robertas was this like just wanting
to master the wood fired oven, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
And I've never done it. I've never cooked in a
wood fired oven. So my context is is the rock box,
to be honest with you, and I still get that
same smell. I set up this whole covered porch in
my back that's actually in the winter and closed on
the sides, and I'm out there all the time, and
I'm entertaining. I'd love to have guests over and cooking
these pieces.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
And well what's cool about that is, I bet if
you did jump into a wood fired oven, you'd basically
you'd be you know, pro day one, because you've you know,
the rock box is basically it's very similar and like
a smaller scale of you know, like how you put
it in and turn it, and the speed of everything
as it's happening, and how you use the flame to
kind of color the crust and you have to rotate
(39:57):
it and you have to check the bottom and all
that stuff is just happening on a bigger scale the
wood oven. But and every wood oven is different. I mean,
you know, I've I've had somewhere it's like you put
the pizza in and you barely have to do anything
where it's like to where it comes out perfect. And
I've had other ones where I had to really fight
to like get the product that I wanted to come
out of the other end of it. And then wood,
(40:19):
you know, wood is also very different from one place
to another. You know, in Turkey, we had the wood
like I was telling him how important it was that
the would be chopped very small. We call triple cut,
you know, in the like if you're talking to a
wood guy and you want to get it, you say
you want a triple cut, it's like about you know,
(40:39):
three inches square. And so the wood guy, they're like
the wood guys here, he wants to talk to you.
So I go out there and they're translating from Turkish
to English and the wood guys there, he's like from
like from the woods of you know, Anatolia, and he's like,
you know, he's like got this truck and this like
big straw hat thing, and he's like looking at me,
(41:01):
very skeptical, and you know, he's like he's like show him.
They're like show him on the truck, which size would
you want? And so like I searched through this truck
and I find this one small piece and he's like
he's rolling his eyes, like you it has to be
that small. Like he's like why. I was like, they're
like and they're like talking to him, and they're like, well,
(41:21):
he's our pizza expert. He came here to teach his
pizza expert and he's and so then he says a
bunch of stuff to them and they say, so he says,
if you're such a pizza expert. Tell him what kind
of wood that this is? And I was like, right,
that's fair, fair enough, and so like I take the
wood and like, I have no idea what kind of
wood it is, but you know, just looking at the
(41:43):
bark and the fact that I've been ordering wood for
a long time, I said, well, it looks to me
it's like some variety of white oak, you know. And
they tell him that, and you know, he looks at
me and he's like, all right, I fine, We'll we'll
deliver the that's small cut wood for you, you know,
because it is one of the biggest things with the
(42:04):
wood oven is to having the right wood that's dry
and it's cut the right way so that you can
get this consistent flame, you know, because otherwise you'll get
coal build up, and then the coal build up will
result in a floor that is too hot but not
enough like radiance.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
So now, though, if you're going to do one of these,
sometimes you're just going to say, for convenience sake, I'm
going propane or gas in the rock box and have
five of them lined up right so I can meet
the demand and the speed and don't want to deal
with that, with five ovens, right, it's okay, decision.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
To make my work right now. With that, like that
instinct in the commercial realm translates into people using electric ovens,
which has oh yeah, since I've started consulting seven years ago.
They revolutionized the pizza world. And I think, yeah, for
what you lose with the sexiness and the mystery and
(42:58):
the beauty of the wood fired oven, you gain in
the ability to focus on your dough and focus on fermentation.
And then the oven itself is really like paint by numbers,
you know. It's like once you dial in your set,
like what style of pizza do you want? Okay, let's
dial the temperature, and then you can control the power
that comes to the bottom of it, the power that
(43:20):
comes to the top of it. And then once you
lock that in, then really all you have to do
is hit your fermentation, build your pizza correctly. You put
it the oven part of it. You put it in,
and you take it out. You don't even turn it, Yeah,
turn it once, you know, and it's I mean, it's
to me, it's great. Like I often think about, you know,
(43:41):
if I were to I mean, because I didn't go
I didn't have like a master plan after Roberta's. You know,
it was a sudden thing. It was a falling out,
you know. So it was not a like something where
I thought I was ever going to leave, you know.
I thought that I was going to be there for
the rest of my life pretty much. But so it
(44:02):
goes and you know, I was like, well, I guess
I'll start to peat my own place, you know, seems
like a good move. And I started looking for places.
But then people were calling me and they were like, hey,
you know, come to Brazil, come to Canada, you know,
come to Lisbon. And it just started stacking up and
within a year that was my full time gig. But
(44:25):
I think often and I dream about opening my own place,
and I often my biggest debate is whether I would
go electric or would which there's the only two choices
for me.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Take it from me, Tony, don't a restaurant for me. Yeah,
I agree with you. I'm only kadding I'm throwing back
at you.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
No, no, my wife, my wife would agree with you
for sure. But I dream about it a lot. And
but I would go back and forth between those two
because I.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Mean, if I was doing a restaurant thing.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
I from what I'm the little I know about the
electric and talking to people, it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
But I guess in my mind, I'm still there's this
guy uh in London peddling pizzas who uses the domes,
Who's got a truck full of Gosney domes. Yeah, I
guess part of me just keeps envisioning because it's closer
to what I do now.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
It's like being outside.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
And racking up these a bunch of those rock boxes
with domes.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Yeah. I mean it's tough with the thing with us
is I don't I don't necessarily even know how you
would do that because we always had a home base, you.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Know exactly, And this is getting to the weeds and
I don't even know if this is part of your
thing butt like like for me right now, one of
my obstacles is in a way lack of a home
base because you need all these permits.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
I think you could fly under the radar at certain
types of things, but there's a lot of them you can't,
and they're doing inspections and stuff. So if you're going
out of state, even when you with Robertus and you're
a New York based pizzeria restaurant, how do you bake
in Texas?
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Well, this it took a lot. It was a lot
of you know, I did a lot of planning ahead
of time, you know, so I would have to in
the case of doing something like south By Southwest, you know,
I had to find I had to find a place
to make a home base, a temporary one in pay
for it.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Aha.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
So I found like a commercial bakery where they made like,
you know, cookies that you would sell at a like
at the supermarket. I goas literally they made Texas shaped
cookies at this place, and all kinds of other stuff.
And so they had you know, a place for us
to load in. They had you know, the size of
(46:53):
the mixers we'd need to do like a thousand pizzas
a day, you know, to prepare everything. They had enough
they had extra refrige duration space. I mean, because you
can't just like rent a place that's already like functioning,
you know, because most plays are maxed out, you know,
so you really have to find either a commissary kitchen
that specializes in in having like being like a communal
(47:15):
kitchen or a commercial bakery that just has you know,
some your amount that you're doing for your little pop
up is not like an impact their major their operation.
So I did that one year. Another year we did
a commercial, like a communal commercial space. And yeah, I
mean it's a lot of logistics, you know. It's it's
a lot of logistics, you know. And and that's where
(47:36):
again like film production, but I've seen I've seen the
you know it, like good producers have these like super
type timelines, and they're problem solvers and they are researchers,
and they are experts at lots of you know, random
things like you know, like location scout, yeah, or like
(47:59):
you know, how to use a ratchet strap and stuff
like that, you know, and so you learn from your
mistakes and you try not to repeat them, you know,
and do it better, you know. Yeah, And that's really
what prepared me more than anything for what I do now,
because it's it's not so much about the specific you know,
(48:19):
pizza that I'm making, or even pizza. I mean, I
think I could probably do a good job consulting on
like a place someone opening a taco restaurant, because you know,
it's it's really about like having done everything so many times,
and it's you know, been fucked up that, Like I
know what refrigeration not to buy? Like what you know,
(48:42):
how to not lay a place out? Like, you know,
just a lot of mistakes that I've made, trying to
like constantly you know, do these different one off things.
They were always different and I always had too a
learning from from one thing, you know.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yeah, two last questions.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
If the restaurant business isn't the way to go, and
you half joking but seriously kind of advise against it,
what is the way in the food business?
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Like what is in breadmaking pizza?
Speaker 3 (49:23):
God, I don't know. I like giving it away for free,
That's my favorite thing to do. I just gotta figure out.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
Did you like the frozen end of the Roberts thing?
Speaker 3 (49:32):
Frozen's tough, man, because it's like you've really got to
scale big and those big corporate players are not messing around.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
You know.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
You hear about big like you hear about small food
brands getting bought, but like you don't hear about all
of the efforts of those big corporations to kill those
brands before they have to buy them. You know, margins
are tight. Everything is is really like you know, is
skewed to advantage the huge corporations that are involved, some
(50:01):
of the biggest companies in the world like Nesley, Unilever,
Craft you know. I mean these are monster global entities,
you know, and they make lots of money on frozen pizza.
And what makes you think they're gonna let you just
move in on their racket?
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Of course?
Speaker 3 (50:15):
You know, sure, Like so, you know, the restaurant industry
is much more fragmented. You know, Domino's is more of
a series of small restaurants than it is a like
global behemoth like you know, Red Barn. So you know,
(50:36):
I think it's I would, I think it's interesting frozen pizza.
I think it's also interesting making products that are you know,
that have like good solid ingredients like incorporating frozen pizza,
like frozen pizza that has sour dough or whole grains
or things like that. But to me, it's not like
the smart money. I mean, to me, the smart money
(50:57):
and opening a restaurant, like yeah, I mean i'd say,
like go to a like a b market, right, so
like not New York, not Los Angeles, not Chicago, you know,
go to a Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
What I was talking about.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
Yeah, like go to I mean there's so many like
you know, go to Nashville or you know, Denver or
something like that, and just bring great pizza there and
keep it simple. Start very simple. Like all you have
to do is look at who's successful, and you know
what do they focus on? Takeout and delivery. I think
(51:32):
that's a big thing that you Where you can be
successful is if you can if you can have a
small dining room and really focus on takeout and delivery
and make figure out a model that makes money that way.
But at the end of the day, the thing to
do is, you know, the thing that's going to get
you through the hard times, the thing that's a that's
a obsession more than it is a you know, chasing money.
(51:54):
You want to be chasing a dream. You know, if
your dream is to wake up and cook in a
wood fired of and every day, then you know, if
you can pay the bills, then you're fine.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
You know.
Speaker 3 (52:04):
Like for me, I love to travel. I love to
meet new people, and you know, I love to the challenges.
You know, I like people asking me for advice. You know,
I like to research new ingredients and new techniques and
so I'm I'm able to make a living and feed
(52:25):
my family, you know, And and I'm very I feel
very blessed for that. But yeah, I mean it's like
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna
be rich anytime soon, you know, Like, and I don't care.
What do I want to be rich for? Like we
had a great apartment in New York. You know, I
got a cool truck.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Like, and you've got a great family. Yeah, exactly, You're rich.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
You're just rich.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
White is my business partner? Who's the best? You know,
so's living the dream over here, Bud love it.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
Last question, can you tell me and our listeners about
one of your most memorable meals? It could be the
company and why. It could be the company, it could
be the food, it could be the ambiance. But is
there a meal that might stand out that was really
(53:18):
memorable for some reason?
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (53:22):
So many?
Speaker 2 (53:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (53:27):
I think a real high point for me was I
did a pop up in Mexico City and we were
also filming a pilot and you know, the show didn't
get made. You know, there's a lot of a lot
of pilots get made, a lot of them don't get
turned into shows. But it was a cool thing to
shoot it in Mexico City. You know, I chose Mexico
(53:47):
City because like Mexico City was really the first global city.
You know, it's ground zero for like the Columbian Exchange,
and you know, the idea was to explore the origin
of you know, pizza by going there and looking into tomatoes. Anyways,
we did the pop up, we shot the thing. It
was great, and so we had like our wrap lunch,
you know, and you know that you know the feeling,
(54:09):
the great feeling of a good rap lunch because you know,
it's not like a restaurant, like a project now where
like you know, I I set it up and then
that the beginning is is just now. Like we did
the pop up, we shot the thing, it's all done.
And so we went to this place called Barrelsa and
it's like it's a in the downtown Mexico City and
(54:34):
it's an old It was a Spanish style restaurant in
in Mexico City. After the Spanish Civil War, a lot
of leftists and socialists moved to Mexico City and some
of them started bookshops and some of them started restaurants.
And this was just a really cool, big restaurant and
they had like it was like the Spanish food had
(54:54):
slowly evolved to Mexican taste. So there was also these
like really spicy you know, salsa. But it was this
big table of you know, really interesting people like me
Wei who owns this pizza place, and uh Pizza Police
in Mexico City, who she's just a brilliant chef. And
then the film crew was there and we were eating
like this whole beef shank, you know, with tortillas, and
(55:16):
there was like this chariso and I mean it was
just incredible. And then we all had you know, we
had some cocktails and then some kind of heels at
the end, and it was just like, yeah, it was
I felt. I felt at that point like I really
I was living the dream, you know.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
And you were with people you worked really hard with
all week. There was a lot of hope, it's cool. Great, Yeah,
love it, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Well, listen, I really appreciate you spending some time with me.
It's an honor to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
It was great talking to you. We gotta we got
to actually, like you know, get a get a coffee
or a glass of wine sometime and go go deeper.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
I would love to man, you're in Brooklyn, Yeah, Williams
work all right?
Speaker 2 (55:59):
Cool man, all right? Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (56:02):
Yeah, great talking you. Thanks for reaching out, and best
of luck for your podcast. I look forward to seeing
your future episodes and thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (56:13):
This episode of Bread for the People was brought to
you by Side Hustle Bread, Long Island's handcrafted, artisanal bread company.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
Side Hustle Bread is.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
A family run business that's bringing the neighborhood feel back
to Long Island, one loaf at a time. If you
like what you're hearing, don't forget to head on over
to iTunes and rate and review this episode. Reviewing and
rating is the most effective way.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
To help us grow our audience.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
This episode was produced by Milestone TV and Film. I'm
your host, Jim Surperco. Less it be the bread, everyone,
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