347: Pizza Week with Daniel Holzman of Danny Boy’s Famous Original Pizza

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. I judge the quality of my pizzeria based on how many crusts are thrown away. People can say whatever they want, but you put tomato and cheese, you put it in the oven, it just tastes good. The crust underneath there can be better or worse, but when you get to the crust, if you keep on going, it means that somebody did something really well.

0:52This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbarg.

0:59On this episode, we catch up with the one and only Daniel Holtzman, the chef and owner of Danny Boy's famous original pizza in Los Angeles. Daniel is a good friend of taste and my longtime writing partner. It was so cool catching up with him to talk about pie, including what Los Angeles was missing when Danny Boy's jumped into the scene a few years back. We find out about Daniel's detailed approach to bringing New York City slices to the West Coast, and all about his upcoming expansion plans. We also find out about what excites Daniel about pizza around the globe. It's so great catching up with Daniel, and I hope you enjoy this conversation.

1:45Daniel Holtzman, welcome to This Is Taste. What's up, buddy? My old friend, Matthew Rodbard, who has the most handsome, like, gray hair. You just have a great head of hair. You look like a wolf. Well, you know what? You're looking good yourself. You've been wearing some Danny Boyz merch. Your guns are out. You're looking trim. Sun's out, guns out. L.A. is treating you well. You seem healthy. I'm sitting down, and Matt can only see basically from my double chin up. You can't tell that below the microphone is a porpoise-like body. No, you look good. You look great. And I wanted to have you in for a lot of reasons.

2:24First, it's pizza week. So I want to talk to you about your restaurant, Danny Boy's Famous Original in Los Angeles. But also talk about a little book we wrote called... Food IQ. 100 questions, answers, and recipes to increase your cooking smarts. You know it, and listeners, this is a joke, because Daniel and I did a lot of interviews. We were blessed to be talking on a lot of podcasts and radio shows, and now we're, like, doing it in a different way. So it's kind of funny. Proud members of the Zoom generator. We are. It was definitely pandemic Zoom time. But, like, first, you're in New York. You were born here and raised here.

2:59You've been living in L.A. for many years. But where have you been hitting up? Give me the restaurant rundown. I don't want to be disingenuous to y 'all. I was born in New Jersey, boot in New Jersey. I moved here when I was three months old. I knew that, buddy. So I do have some dirty Jer's blood running through these veins, which peppers my taste. It does. It seasons my perspective. And I got back here yesterday. It's been a year, longest I've ever been out of New York. And it's so spectacular to see the city in full bloom and blossom and people walking around. And it's got so much energy and excitement.

3:32And the restaurants are full and they're spilling out onto the street. And there's a smell to autumn that is like nothing else. the way the horns sound you can smell and hear the seasons change in new york in a special way yeah the the anxiety and the anger it has hits different in the fall i think the most amazing thing is if you walk from top to the bottom not from the top because no one goes up there but if you walk from like the middle to the bottom of manhattan you can feel the energy of the of the neighborhoods change like like going to a different country it's incredible yeah like there's a quietness that happens at like 28th street that where you just leave the business oriented kind of like hustle bustle and you enter a new it's amazing yeah so where you been eating let me let me get into the food situation i like i like the walt whitman uh segue i mean it's been nice to go in that direction um where did i eat i ate at a uh a serbian restaurant last night in the Lower East Side, which is delicious.

4:31Yeah. It's been here for a while. I'm probably going to butcher the name, though it's in Cyrillic. Yeah. I think it's called Kafana. Oh, yeah. Kafana, of course. It's called Kafana. Kafana. That place is old school legend. What did you have? A-A circle with a line through an A-H-A, which is pronounced Kafana. Yeah, Kafana is for sure. I had a lot of salty meat and it was phenomenal. And I had a great time. So great. I got here and I went to Esso Bagel, and I had a bagel with salmon spread. That's Upper East Side? No, the original one's in the 20s on Second Avenue. I think original, I don't know where.

5:06It could have been in like a pogrom or something. I don't know where the original is. Yeah, the old world. It was imported to New York back in the 20s. The bagel was, I got to say, the article about L.A. having the greatest bagels in the world, it really hurt my feelings. You know, and you get your bristles up when you're from New York because you want to be number one about everything. But I had a Courage Bagel two days ago. Wondering about that place. God, it is so good. Yeah. And everything about it makes me angry because it's not a bagel shop. You wait an hour for a bagel. It's expensive. It's all the stuff.

5:44And then you bite into this spectacular like bagel. Did the line make it like 15 % better? If I'm a thousand percent honest, I didn't wait in line. Daniel Sharp, my dear friend, our friend was in town, and he went there. You waited in line. I was like, yo, do me a favor, grab me a bagel. I want to recheck to make, I would never wait. No, I would. I've never waited in that line. We've talked about that a lot, like waiting in line is sucker move. For a bagel. Sucker move, I think. Now, in New York, you went to Kofana. What's on the schedule for you? All right. I got a list of restaurants that I'm going to go to.

6:16I'd like to hear it, because it's been one year, and that's crazy, because you used to come here all the time. I used to be up in the scene like I knew every restaurant. And now I feel like you walk away and the tide just sweeps you. It's just there's nothing fresh. Everything is brand new and you can't, there's no way you can keep up, right? I'm going to Marcus Samuelson's no longer new restaurant tonight for dinner. What's that one called? Havermar. Havermar. Yeah, it's pretty new. I called that in the new-ish zone. I'm excited about that. Cool. You and I are going to dinner. We are. We're going to, we have a reservation at Lourdes.

6:52Lourdes. Yeah, Lorde's, the guy's from Dame. It's their British gastropub. I love that Royals song. It's a great song. Yeah, but I don't know if that's... I love that song. And they're, yeah. She's great. I love that album. Yeah. We're here for IACP, by the way. We have to, like, do it our own horn. Yeah, by the way, we've been nominated. Not awarded, but nominated. Nominated. It's nice to be nominated, all I gotta say. So we're here... Recognized. It's nice to be recognized. It's nice to be recognized by IACP. Thank you, IACP. Okay, so you got those spots. What about pizza? For most importantly, though, I'm going right now.

7:24I'm going to be I'm going to not be an age. I'm going to I just came from being a store. But that's film store. I'm going to Barney Greengrass. Oh, you are nice. I'm meeting my Uncle Barry at Barney Greengrass, not just because of the alliteration. It sounds I am going up there because it is such a great restaurant. Yeah. What a great place. It's kind of place that still has like paper on the counter. Like they're actually doing their accounting with paper and pencils. Right. The first time I went into Barney Greengrass, I went to pay with a credit card. He's like, no, no credit cards, cash. I don't have any cash.

7:59He's like, all right. Pulls out a book. Yeah. Pulls out a book and a pen. And he and he's like, just tell me your name. And he writes down my name and the amount of money I owe. And this was like, you know, not in 1920. No, it was. I'm like, well, the book still exists. He assesses you, though. He'll look at you and decide whether you're going to be one of the honest people or not. Yeah. Now, let me ask you, did you pay him back? Absolutely not. I've never gone back. So you're ready to— No, I'm going to—I assume that's why I grew a mustache. He won't recognize me. You're not going to recognize me.

8:31So are you going to say to this gentleman when you go there, do you have cash in hand? I got$400, so that should buy my$28 for my—the coffee there is not the greatest coffee in the city. No. It's kind of like brownish water. And the attitude is real New York It's smoked fish It's the sturgeon That's what I go with there as well Good bagels too Pizza, let's talk about that I want to segue into Danny Boy's Famous I'm going up to Mama's too also That's cool because you and I have never been there together I've been there a bunch I love that place Their sandwiches look so beautiful I've never had one of their sandwiches I just think people say You're going to New York, you're a pizza guy now all of a sudden yeah okay where are you gonna where are you gonna go i'm like i'm going to you know mama's too and lit industry and i uh walked by scars yesterday and i declined to slice yeah well because of the line or just no just because they're just too popular and everybody says the greatest thing in the world and it's i've i've eaten there many times and i find it to be uh phenomenal but i just didn't want to i don't in the off chance that as they expanded um they lost some of their their their their their polish and shine i don't want to find out i just want to remember how delicious it was.

9:44I agree. That's a great way to look at food. If you've had a great experience, why taint it with like a not so great? Let's talk about Finney. What about Finney? Is that on your radar? Tell me about Finney. That's Sean Finney's place. Missy Robbins, his partner. Really great branding like yourself. I feel you and him. Pizza place, where? It's in Williamsburg. He's got a place. He's doing Barclays now. Okay, I'm going to go there. You should check out Finney. Because he's a lovely guy. He's a nice guy. Absolutely. And is she not involved in it? I don't I think so. I think it's just his game. But it's really good.

10:15That's a strong, strange move because he was a finance guy. He was. But he's a restaurant guy now. He's been in it for 10 years. Some of the best restaurants in the city. Missy. No, really good. So there's that place. And Mama's 2 is cool. We went to FNF last time. Yeah, we had Food by the Franks. The only bone to pick that I have with them is that their large T-shirt is not a large. I gotta tell you That is a That's a solid medium And as a As a As an extra medium sized man It was a little offensive I know To try and fit into that large t-shirt And feel like I was in a wetsuit Dude I got a A bonchi shirt in Chicago Went to bonchi in Chicago And it was really It was fucking gas It was a really good place It was so good And I bought the shirt I bought the large And the large Was like baby tea on me It's unbelievable It's like I'm showing navel Are we at Uniqlo here Or is this No come on I feel like I'm showing navel in these restaurant guy shirts.

11:10It's because the restaurant guys are so skinny and fit now. By the way, not completely. Sojourn, different topic completely. But I got a Filson. I'm a small in Filson's. Really? That is a real man-sized place. I'm a small jacket in Filson's. The large is like a, it looks like I'm wearing my dad's T-shirt and I'm a little kid. It goes down to my toes. It's unbelievable. I think outerwear is definitely a little different game. Yeah. I like, yeah. a bipartisan issue that I think we can all, we should have consistent sizing. I agree. Consistent sizing for men. Especially for us. It'll just help us.

11:47Now, let's talk about Danny Boy's famous original. I want to know just for the sake of Pizza Week, tell me about your pie. I would like to get your definition of the style of pizza you're doing there. Okay. And it's phenomenal, by the way. Biased, obviously, we're friends, but I love that. I love your pie. I don't think I've ever been so proud of anything ever before in my life as I am of the pizza that we are producing at Danny Boy's Famous Original Pizza. The team of people are so committed to the singular goal of making the greatest slice of pizza that we possibly can every single time with no distractions, no bulge stuff.

12:28What do you call it on the radio? Beeswax. Bees. It's the bee's knees. Yeah. None of the beeswax. um it is uh we we have been slowly evolving the slice since the day that we opened we were testing out slices we did so much work before we opened and i tried to learn how to make pizza as best as i could um but it's like the yeast teaches you as you go and you that ingredient that component specifically it's a humbling experience when it doesn't work and it's it's microscopic so you can't see it but it leaves a subtle hint as it as it as it does its thing and as if you can tune into it and work with it every day um day in and day out and this you can start to recognize the subtleties and you really can make something spectacular it is as close to alchemy as we we have come in the modern aid era is like you you add these ingredients that on their own are just so mundane and it becomes so spectacular and the difference between this extraordinary outcome and just crap is like the most subtle change in temperature.

13:52Like, you know, people are like, oh, you know, what kind of flour? What kind of this? It's like, no, it's the everything matters. But it's the like, it's the temperature and the time. So much finesse to pizza. It's great. Great call, Daniel, because you can talk about having all the right things, all the right tomatoes, all the right that you obviously the right flour. But man, you got to have a chef chef's instinct and that finesse. Right. The hardest part is to put the right amount of cheese on that pie, man. I just want to put more cheese on every time. Yeah. More is less. More is less. When it comes to cheese, you've got to go super gentle on the cheese.

14:25More is lesser. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like the better the ingredients, the fewer you need. Yeah. But, you know, their bread baking is the alchemy part. The toppings are where the chef can help. Yeah, the chef comes in, but, you know, I mean, it comes down to the crust, the dough, the bread for many people, I think. To your point. I judge the quality of my pizzeria based on how many crusts are thrown away. I love that. You know, like when you look around at a regular pizzeria, just notice that when you go into a pizzeria. And that's the true. People can say whatever they want. But you put tomato and cheese, you put it in the oven.

15:04It just tastes good. Yeah. I don't care what the quality is. It tastes good. Now, the crust underneath there can be better or worse, right? We all judge bitter and bad pizza. We all have a taste. Yeah. But when you get to the crust, if you keep on going, it means that somebody did something really well. What do you think about the Detroit style, just actually making the crust oily and cheesy, like the Frico style? I mean, I think that all the different types of pizza can be delicious foodstuffs. And I think that, you know, if you go to a place in L.A. like Apollonia's where they make it into an art and the frico stands up, it's like unbelievable the level of artisan craft that goes into making that pizza so spectacular.

15:47Speaking of L.A., have you made it to Quarter Sheets yet? I have not been to Quarter Sheets. It's the number one restaurant in the world, apparently. It's just under El Bully this year. Yeah, El Bully's Ghost and then there's Quarter Sheets. Yeah, yeah. I tried to park. I couldn't even go in. But we've had Hannah on the show. Look, I got to tell you, like. Making pizza is a day is an every single day attention to detail craft that you have to you have to be on. And if they are if they're if they're as consistently good as people say they are, then I applaud their commitment. Well, I'm going to link to our original interview from 2020 in the show notes because we talked a lot about your past in the restaurant world.

16:31So you should definitely go back. It's a great conversation. And, you know, you come from fine dining. You worked in La Bernardin. You worked in California. You also started the Meatball Shop, which highly successful fast casual QSR restaurant in New York and all over. The question is, Daniel, did you realize pizza would be this difficult knowing that you've seen pretty much every element of the restaurant world? The thing that really took me about pizza is that it's very easy to objectively look at a piece of pizza that you've made and see how good it is. And you can really test yourself. And baking is a craft.

17:18It just is a real, true artisan craft, right? And so the challenge is not like, can I make a piece of pizza that's good? The challenge is, can I consistently make a piece? And that, you get caught up in that and it just takes you away forever. You just, you want to be there every day. My goals as a human have changed. They've just changed because of it. Like I just, my goals have been. Because you started a pizzeria. Yeah. Your goals as a human. that says a lot about this job. It's the team and the team of people, you know, how do you get a team of people to truly, like, want to make something great and understand the importance of something that's so insignificant?

18:07Like, I think a big part of it is this dough, and the dough needs to rest. This actually has time. You have to actually plan this shit out, and so you can't just, like, make it like a salad, right? I mean, you can't, even, like, meatballs, You could probably pick up meat a little quicker than you could, you know, let dough naturally rise. I mean, our pizza takes four or five days, you know, from the time we started to the time that we serve it. That's amazing. That's amazing to say that. The other thing is like, yeah, and it's like, you know, a one degree change in angle from four days later. You know, it's like imagine a ship out at sea.

18:40You could be up like, end up in Azerbaijan, you know, getting shot at. Yeah, just one degree. Yeah, definitely. One degree different and you could be in a conflict zone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were going for Israel and you ended up in somewhere not as friendly. Yeah, yeah. So it's really just centimeters is like the difference. Did I use the word pogrom correctly earlier? You said it correctly because I believe those bagels did come from a pogrom and you actually pronounced it correctly. Oh, God bless it. So you're on two for two with that one. Two for two. Daniel, let me ask you about the future.

19:10Can I ask you about your gold chain? He's got a gold bracelet. I know. I got it right. It's a big pimpin'. It's thick. Does your right arm, do you have to switch them over or do you just get extra work out? The right arm has a little bit more of a bulge now. And this is from June. That's good. I've had it for a few months. I'm glad you picked it up because you kind of turned me on to a little more gold in your life. I love gold. You do? I mean, do you have the pizza still? I have a diamond and ruby crusted pizza chain. Yeah. I don't wear it because it's part of my pizza guy persona. And right now I'm just normal guy.

19:45You're a normal guy in New York. My pizza guy's got an accent. I talk fast. I do a whole shtick. My regular guy is just like, I'm just a regular guy. Well, back to the gold. There's a time in a Jewish man's life you just need a little gold. I'll tell you a story offline about the Jewish gold. All right. Let me find out exactly what's happening with the expansion of Danny Boys. Can we talk about that? Because I'm really proud of you. And I know that going from one to two to other numbers is just so hard. I got a lot of people in my life in the restaurant world, and you're thinking more than thinking that you're going to expand.

20:19No, I've got a restaurant. I'm opening a restaurant. What can we talk about? Yeah, so I had a very difficult experience expanding my last restaurant. I expanded it in a way that I—well, it's evidenced by the fact that there's one now, and it's doing really well. The one in Chelsea, right? There's one meatball shop that's doing really well. It's on 51st Street. Oh, Hell's Kitchen. Hell's Kitchen. It's right by our office. But my experience of expanding it, I just, I didn't understand what was truly important to me and what I needed to focus on, which is, you know, you got the people that are doing it need to want to do it and you need the right team.

21:06Everything is about the team. and I when I opened up Danny Boy's I was really adamant with myself that we were not going to do that again I was not going to expand the restaurant I was gonna have one restaurant one pizzeria you don't need more than one I remember the deck you showed it to me one pizzeria it was definitely the plan all the investors are like oh you're gonna have multiple restaurants blah blah I'm like no when they're like what's your plan I'm like I don't have my plan is to make a great pizzeria and then my plan is to test the waters and see how it's going and decide what to do next yeah like what to do next not let the plan because you best laid plans are my cement you let the plan dictate your life and next thing you know you're you're just you're no longer sailing the ship you're just a passenger and when that happens how do you maintain the quality yeah so this time around um the team is dictating the growth and what that means is that i've got i've got i've got alan and i've got tony um and i've got uh um uh moise and i've got sylvia and they've been there for two years we got no turnover i've got this you know jose is making the dough every day and it's great and they want more and i want to give them more um i want them all to be making real real like real family wage that you can support your your kids and and your and have a good life.

22:32And you can't do that one slice at a time. You need enough for them. So we're going to do it. We're going to open one more restaurant. We're opening in Westwood, which is a great neighborhood. Westwood, campus, UCLA is there. It's a great neighborhood. Very, very different from downtown where you're at right now, very different neighborhood. I got to just say, I know it just sounds like it's such a shtick, spiel, bullshit thing to say to be like, well, you know, I'm opening because of the team and blah, blah, blah. This is so honest and true. And it's so important because if you open a restaurant for the wrong reason, their chain restaurants can serve a purpose, which is you got to get a bite to eat.

23:14But if you want real soul, if you want a real experience, man, the people there have to want to do it. Yeah. Every day they represent you and your pizza. If you're not there, if you're there greeting the customer, making the pies. just caring all the above caring why if you don't care like yo I'm a McNugget man it's great but like you know and there are better and worse McDonald's for sure I've grown for different every now and then you're like damn someone there's one in Pennsylvania I go to every time I drive to Michigan from New York and it's really really really good it's in Pennsylvania I'm I wish I should yelp it next time yeah you should be like god damn it I want I think that that if there's any journalists out there that are underweight and need to need to really just rate all the McDonald's in America There should be an app for McDonald's rating.

23:59I think it'd be cool to consider that for a retirement project. Let's go. Every McDonald's in America rated by, you know, like one bite, like the pizza guy, but we'll do. Let's not mention it. By one bite of McDonald's. Let's not go there. Oh, people don't like him because he's politically arousing or what? I think there's controversy around many elements of his life. Yeah. I just. I hope he rates your pizza because you'll like it. You know what I love? I love the diversity of human beings and all of their opinions. I think it's so phenomenal that we live in a world where people can argue. That's the beauty of free speech.

24:30He's going to like your pizza. I know that. Don't shame people for speaking up. I'm not trying to shame anyone. Not you, I'm saying. Oh, yeah. Just saying this to the people. Don't shame people for speaking up because that is the beauty of our country. Let me ask you about Westwood. Are you, like, beefed up on UCLA Hoops history? Do you know about, like, John Wooden and Bill Walton? I've never ever. I think I went to one basketball game and it was during Lynn Sanity and I walked out halfway through. Oh, you mean NBA in New York? Yeah, yeah. I'm just not a, I don't play sports. I know you're not.

25:03I don't like sports. I get it. I don't care. But you're opening a restaurant in Westwood. And I think that's fantastic. I'm going to have a TV on the wall. You're going to have like Bruins gear. I'm going to have TVs. Dude, really? Yeah, we're doing TVs. I'm going to have beer and wine and TVs. Oh, so it's like an expanded version of what you're doing right now a little bit. It's a little bit expanded. I'm going to try and keep it true to itself, but I want it to be comfortable for people. I'm really excited to see. I want your families to come there. When are you opening? I'm going to open in, God, oh, Jesus, please, Lord, February.

25:29I start paying rent in February. We'll, like, bleep out the word and, like, we'll have to, like, insert the date in it. Yeah, but I'm opening sometimes. Spring, spring-ish. Spring-ish. Yeah, spring and sprung. No, I think Q1 2024 is the goal. Los Angeles is not the fastest moving animal. The reason that you pay all that extra tax is because they hire extra people to bust your chops. Interesting. One more question about restaurants and we'll get to cookbooks. I want to know what's been the biggest difference in operating in L.A. than New York? Is there like something that really comes to mind? I think New York is just big and busy and you open the doors and people just flood in.

26:07You know, you walk down the street and, you know, it doesn't take a lot to get noticed in New York because there's so many people to do the noticing. In L.A., you really need to kind of like wave your hand and be like, hey, guys, I'm over here. And so there's a subtlety about New York that I think is amazing where you can kind of understate and, you know, like under promise and over deliver and people kind of get it. L.A. is a tinsel town. And you got to say, hey, guys, I'm great. And this is why. And then people are like, oh, OK, then we'll check you out. They call it like thirsty. You can't be understated.

26:45You got to be thirsty to operate in restaurants in L.A., I feel. Yeah. I tried the subtlety thing. Nah. Speaking of being thirsty, in the highest compliment ever, your TikTok is absolutely the best. I love it. I'm going to link to it. Did you realize TikTok could actually get butts in the seat like this? This guy, Matt Rodbard, told me years ago, TikTok is like the Wild West, and it's going to be developed, and you better get your, put your, put your foot in there because you can, you can get something that's going to be valuable and you can own it. And I kind of scoffed cause I was like, yeah, if you're like 13 years old.