627: An Epic NYC Pizza Tour with Maurizio Leo. Plus, Anthony Falco’s Italian Pizza Adventures.

30:55Just everything came together today. They were having a good day. I think that F &F is having a great day today with their focaccia. We also tried the sausage and Rob iconic slice that is just straight as an arrow, always there. I think that we progressed in terms of dough styles, in terms of the fermentation. and Upside really took it for me. I think that what they're doing there with the flavor in the dough was just exceptional. I think FNF also has with this focaccia just such a flavor profile that shows time and maturity. Going back to industry, I think that that was like the most, even though it was like right at the beginning, that was like the most fun space.

31:36Yeah, it was fun. It was like booming and I love the way it's designed and I love that it had a beautiful pastry case filled with desserts. I love the energy there. I think Mama's struggled for me a bit today. I just thought the pies felt overly done and heavy. And I've been, this is now like my fourth time. I'm not sure if I'm going to run back. There's like many other slices I want to try. I want to go to Ciri's just to have pizza. So I don't think I'm going to run back to Mama's too, but I'm definitely going to head out, head back to all the other places whenever I can. Yeah, it was fun. I mean, you really can't go wrong.

32:13It's almost like, what mood am I in today? You know, which place do I feel like the most? And if I lived here, it'd be hard. Hard picking every day. Hard picking. It's just such a beautiful thing to have, to be able to have a meal for under$20, and that includes like a nice drink and gratuity and a couple slices and maybe a quick salad or something. I mean, just such an affordable luxury, say that a lot on the show, to have pizza so beautifully done with such care at such a low price point. We're lucky in New York City. I mean, you're definitely lucky, and you have to think, you know, a lot of these doughs are two, three-day fermentation schedule, and so it's not something they're whipping together right there in the moment.

32:58So there's, I mean, there's a lot of thought, a lot of planning, and a lot of, you know, systems that have to be in place to serve this kind of pizza at this scale. So I love hanging out with you. Let's close and tell us about what you can tell us now about the book. Okay, yeah. My book is all about pizza, focaccia, a few special bread recipes thrown in there. It's all sourdough. So there's different kinds of schedules that you can go on for making these doughs. I think that's one of the hardest things for people at home is, you know, these pizzerias are making, they're on this cadence. You know, every two, three days they have doughs, but at home you may not, you know, you may not want to have dough prep during the week while you're busy working and then have pizza on the weekend.

33:43So part of the book is about scheduling and making pizza, like amazing pizza at home a reality for anybody. And a great companion for your first book, The Perfect Loaf, to have like a great bread program and then transition all that energy to pizza and with a bunch of good recipes. Yeah, and I think they're related, right? Oh, yeah. A lot of people think bread and pizza are two completely different things, but like I say in the book every few pages, if your dough is good, then your pizza is going to be good. Let's leave it at that, Mauricio. It's been fun hanging out. Likewise. Thank you so much for hanging out too, and thanks for joining, buddy.

34:21Thanks for having me.

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35:49Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Today's episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. As a food writer, I can be a little skeptical about subscription cooking boxes you hear about on podcasts. There's big talk about cooking simplicity, but you're usually left with disappointment after smashing that promo code. Now, Clayton, have you ever tried one of those subscription boxes? Yeah, Matt, my friend gave me a code for that one that has all the chopped vegetables in little baggies. I felt like a drug dealer trying to cook dinner. Yeah, man, I have so been there.

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36:59For nearly a decade, ButcherBox has led the industry with meat and seafood that's antibiotic-free. As an exclusive offer, our listeners can get free protein in every box for a year, plus$20 off your first box when you go to butcherbox.com slash taste. Visit butcherbox.com slash taste to get this limited time offer and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. Anthony Falco, welcome back to This Is Taste. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for having me back. I'm so glad to be back in New York and be back here talking with you. Well, you just returned from three weeks in Italy, and you were on the road with your family, the four of you.

37:45And I was observing it from afar, from social media and some messaging in between. And what a great trip. It was amazing. And I mean, I travel for my work like nonstop. And, you know, if there's between school and the feasibility of the location, if I can have my family with me, it's great. But the reality is I am out there by myself a lot. So, you know, summer comes and the kids are out of school. We all took the opportunity to go there. And Roman had never, my youngest son had never been to Italy. Frank had been when he was six months old, so he didn't remember it at all. Oh, I didn't realize that.

38:25I thought this was almost like a regular thing you do. So this is like the first time the whole fam was together in Italy. Yeah. Well, sorry. That was the first time. We did go to Rome like a couple years ago. I forgot about that. But it was the first time that that Roman had been to Milan. Milan. And so Frank had been to Milan when he was six months, which is really funny. But, yeah, I mean, I want to make it a regular thing. I think it's great for the kids. And, you know, if we can make it happen, I want to try to go as much as possible. But, yeah, I go by my I go without them more often. It's great to show them your spots.

39:04Okay, before we get to the trip and all the pizza you had and all the other great things you enjoyed, tell me about what's up with your consulting business. You've got so many projects. You've opened over 60 restaurants through your consulting. And I'm going to link in the show notes to an earlier episode that talks a little bit about your history and where you came from and starting Roberta's and really being a leader in pizza. But I want to hear right now what's good in the consulting world. Yeah. I just so right before Italy, I had like only one night home from a trip to Costa Rica where I was working on a project called Fachi.

39:39Great, great clients. My client, Juan Damiani, just a really, you know, he was very inspired to switch careers, which are some of my favorite clients, is when someone has like a corporate job, but they make pizza on the side or they do pop-ups and they want to, you know, open, like commit to it full time and follow their dream. You know, because I think that's the best reason to open a restaurant is to is because you not from a logical left brain perspective, but because you want to follow your dream and you just you like cooking as opposed to, you know, working spreadsheets. You have to love it.

40:16I mean, the pizza business, my sister-in-law owns a pizzeria in North Jersey. It's like extremely, extremely physical and mentally taxing. It's like you're not just running a restaurant or any pizzeria and you're just like running around all the time and lugging stuff and working with a customer that maybe doesn't appreciate your product as much as it should. Do you agree with that? Yeah. I mean, you know, like it's nobody really can. There's a lot of people who have never worked in a restaurant. And I think that you just you really cannot understand like the amount of work it takes. Being on your feet for, you know, 12, 13 hours at minimum, like, you know, that is something that a lot of people just, I mean, they won't understand.

41:05And so they, everyone thinks they're an expert on restaurants because they've all eaten at a lot of them. But yeah, it's, you can't think about, I try not to think about the customer too much. I mean, I think my philosophy, and I tell this to all my clients, is you have to make what you want, make what you want to eat, make what you're inspired by, and people will come to that and they will respond to that. You know, block out the negativity, focus on the positivity, and just, you know, it's you against the product. It's not you against the clients or the guest or the other competition. It's you against the product.

41:45And it's a it's a long term battle of like looking for perfection, but knowing there will never be perfection. And that's like a noble pursuit in life, I think. It really is. And you also just have to think about a very price sensitive customer because everyone has their opinion about what a slice should cost and what a pie should cost. And it seems like it's so it's always hot button. I mean, I'm talking about pizza on the show all the time and people are always saying it's too expensive. It's too expensive. Yeah. I mean, it's also very geographically sensitive. Sure. You know, it's cheaper to make a pizza in New York than it is in Costa Rica, for sure.

42:23Yeah. You know, and you think, well, okay, that's like, it should be a cheaper country, right? Things should be cheaper there. People have perceptions things should be cheaper in Thailand or other places. But, you know, if you're not in the northern hemisphere or parts of the southern hemisphere, you're not like necessarily in a great place for dairy production or for tomatoes or for flour. So you have to import those things. And so, you know, that ends up being more expensive than, say, like what the local cuisine is. So it's a lot of times pizza is a specialty. Even though it is found everywhere in the world, I mean, I'd have to look at the statistics, but I'd say if there's like one food that is present in every country on the planet.

43:09I mean, I've made pizza in Mongolia. So, I mean, it's all over. It's pizza. But it's, yeah, it can be a struggle sometimes. So, you know, Italy, it's very affordable, you know. But even they are price sensitive as prices are going up. You know, and they are very sensitive to that because wages are very low there. So, I mean, I think if you're a restaurant and you're charging something, I think that it's probably – you probably know what you're doing because if you're open. Yeah, yeah. You know, so if you get it wrong, you're going to be closed pretty quickly. Yeah, it's true. That spreadsheet was a couple points wrong.

43:52Yeah. In your projections, you're not staying open. Yeah. It's a very small margin business. I want to ground it in New York a bit and talk about Upside because early in this episode, Mauricio and I were on our pizza crawl and we just love Upside. It was Mauricio's first time there. I've been many times in what Noam has built there and what you have helped build on the culinary side. Really one of my favorite slices around. I want to talk to you about this summer slice I tried. Okay. So good, man. Yeah. So it was fun to get back in the kitchen with Noam. And, I mean, they're just, you know, great clients.

44:30I started working with them, like, I forget, what, six, seven, eight years ago? Before they even opened, I bet. Yeah, I mean, no, from the very beginning, the first store. And Noam actually came to Seattle with me to do, like, it was like a Breville event. And he's like, you know, I want to shadow you and really learn the pizza. And I was like, okay, well, I'm just doing this all naturally fermented. Like, when I make pizza for myself, I do it all sourdough. And he's like, I want to do that in the shop. And I'm like, no, people don't. You don't do that in shop. We'll do a hybrid. We'll do some yeast and we'll do some sourdough for flavor.

45:02He's like, no, I want to do. He really insists. He was the first client of mine to insist on all naturally leaven. And I was like, all right, let's do it. And, you know, he was unbelievably dedicated in the beginning, like going in, checking on the dough at like three in the morning. And putting the thermometers in. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I mean, from the 8th Avenue original location, what they built is incredible. I think they had seven. Seven, I think. Yeah. And then Norm's, which I also worked on with them, which is three or four. Up on Court Street. I remember going there, right? Yeah.

45:37That was the one. I love that one. And they have great branding and the signage and stuff is super cool what they do. And, yeah, I mean, they're one of my favorite clients. And Norm is also just a really good friend and just, you know, he's a great guy. He hustles really hard. And I think it's great pizza. I mean, I think it's some of the best New York slice there is. And I have, you know, people tell me that sometimes who don't know I was involved in it. And that always feels really good. That's nice. But, yeah, so the summer slice, you know, I went in to check on like kind of, you know, once you get to like seven stores, things, you know, it's you're making dough at every location.

46:16The temperature is a little different. Everything's, you know, it's, it can be complex. So, you know, just dial some things in. We did a rework on the Sicilian right before you went, which is cool. The feedback you gave us was great. But, yeah, the summer, it's corn. I grew up in Texas, and one of my favorite things ever was something called sopa elote, which is a corn soup that I used to have at this restaurant called Fonda San Miguel. and it was one of my favorite things when I was a kid and it was corn, sweet onions, milk, and poblanos, rajas. So roasted poblanos cut into strips and they would put corn.

46:59Chips on top, tortilla strips, yeah. So good. Sounds delicious. So this was kind of inspired by that, because all those things come in season at the same time, the corn, the peppers, and the onions. And so we did a cream base, the white wine lemon cream, which is the same recipe that's on the base of the mushroom pizza. Okay, cool. Yeah, so we cross-utilized that. Yeah, yeah. And then some just raw corn that we just tossed with salt and olive oil and roasted poblano strips and some mozzarella and pecorino. And then when it came out and some yellow onions. Yeah, the onions are, I think, really cool element.

47:43They're raw, right? Yeah. Yeah, the raw onions. Yeah, we wanted to keep it simple. I mean, I think there's a lot of ways where you could make it more complex, but I think I always want to start more simple, and if it works, then we're going with that. And then we finished it with just a little togarashi, which is kind of a reference to street corn when they put the tagine on there. But yeah, the togarashi is a cool element. I could see the tagine working as well. but I think it has buzz to it. I think people want to eat togarashi on things that aren't ramen in Japanese and it's a clever use of a now well-known product as a little spice, as umami, of course.

48:25A little citrus. Citrus too from the Yuzu. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah. Great slice, great slice. Thank you, yeah. We're proud of that one. I think it's a great summer slice and everyone should go to Upside Pizza. Yeah, and the corners, I mean, getting that Sicilian and just like the texture and just like the, it all comes together in such a cool way. Yeah, they've been great to work with. And, you know, now I'm back. I'll go check on them again. Yeah, you'll probably do a little, like, do you just like pop in? Yeah. Even if you don't know the guys, are you just trying to do a little QC? Sometimes if I'm walking by, I'll pop in.

48:57And, I mean, I know a lot of the guys now because I've worked with them. Yeah. And they have some really talented pizza makers there. Definitely. And they've got, you know, new locations. and so if I see it, I've tried to go to every location. But yeah, I mean, I need a little break from pizza at the moment right now. I can imagine. We'll get to your trip to Italy. One more question. Where do you land on burrata on the slice? Because I had some pretty strong opinions about it that I shared. Love to get your take. Yeah. I mean, why not? I mean, first of all, it's, I mean, I had it in Italy. They've been doing it in Puglia forever.

49:36Yeah. I mean, why would you like, I don't know why anyone would get worked up about something like that. Unless they had like a specific beef with like a specific pizzeria that's doing it. I mean, Lindustria has become known for the Burrata Slice. It's their calling card. They're the home of the Burrata Slice. I love those guys so much. Nick and Mossimo are the best in the business. I think it's the best, you know, when they get rated number one slice in the world, I don't think it's wrong. Transparency, are they a client? No, not at all. Good. Just friends and neighbors. Actually, Nick's my next-door neighbor.

50:14Oh, cool. I mean, yeah, I mean, my opinion, I think I was just having a little fun. I mean, that's the fun thing about pizza. I know it is your career, and, like, any shade towards your work is personal and shitty. I just think we have fun with it as writers about judging and rating and stacking the order. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm generally pretty open. And all the things that I said I would never do, I've done. I love that. That's so cool. Like no chicken on pizza. Well, I was in India and there's a lot of dietary restrictions. Chicken was one thing everybody who eats meat can agree on. Yeah.

50:52And so I did it and it was great. You know, we were just in, when we were in Italy, one of the best restaurants that I went to was Aie Due Platini. And Giuseppe from Stella Pizza in Milan made the reservation for me. It was like, it's an impossible to get reservation. He hooked it up. So the pizza dudes looking out for pizza dudes. And they had a chicken pasta that was awesome. And people are like, oh, chicken pasta doesn't exist in Italy. Yeah. It's there. It's there. It's real. It was one of the best restaurants in the country, you know? Yeah. So I think if you do anything you want, man, like I'm not a – I don't tell people.

51:40I'm not trying to like – Rules are for writers. I feel like we just need like structure and we need to like actually like sell papers. Where do you land on the burrata? Oh, my earlier comments is that I was extremely negative on it. And I feel like I just didn't see the need for it. Yeah. And I really, I hope it came through in the piece that we really liked industry. And we really like it as an operation, as a vibe. I love the pastry counter. Just what they serve at the counter is amazing. They're awesome. Yeah, it's a really important restaurant. So I just didn't see the need for it. And I think I would rather go to other places than like wait in line for a burrata slice.

52:18That's where I landed on it. Okay. Yeah. I mean, there was definitely a over-barata moment. I think Tammy wrote about it. And I don't think she was wrong in what she was saying that it just, it is everywhere. Yeah. And it's not something that I have done a lot, although I just announced today that we're doing an homage to it in Brazil. Amazing. At my pizzeria in Sao Paulo, Braza Electrica. we're doing a Brooklyn special and it's inspired by Nick and Mossimo. And I mean, I imagine Brazil has some nice burrata too. Great local burrata. Local burrata. Local buffalo burrata. I've been to the, in Jau, to the factory and made burrata with the ladies who do it every day and they laughed at my poor technique.

53:06Yeah, at least you're trying. They do great stuff there. I mean, the product is amazing in Brazil. That's cool. Well, let's talk about the trip. I mean, how do you go into a big trip like this with your family and tell us where you actually went over these three weeks, like the path you took? Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty I'm pretty plan oriented kind of guy. So I create an itinerary day by day with links to everything and, you know, try to make a lot of reservations. I think if anyone's planning a trip to Italy, it's important to make as many reservations as you can. go ahead and leave yourself some open, you know, spots for panini and pizza and things like that.

53:46But Trattorias, Osterias, you're going to need a reservation at the best places because they just, I mean, sometimes you make the reservation and then you go in and there's really not that many people there. And you're like, what? Why did I do this? Why did I make that phone call? Yeah, but it's a lot of it is because they are planning, you know, it may not look full, but they're not just waiting. They're not just going to prep a lot of food and like hope a bunch of people come in. They want to plan their service. You know, so I think it's important for them and for you to make the reservations.

54:19So we started in Milan and we were there for like, there was like this best pizza awards thing. And I'm a voter and I have some friends and clients on the list. And so, you know, they invited me and I was like, yeah, it's a good excuse to go to Italy. and I got to see a lot of my friends from around the world there, which was super cool. Probably pick up some new clients maybe? Maybe. We'll see. I mean, I'm really, you know, one of the biggest, like, eye-opening things is this idea that I've had for a long time is that New York pizza is about to hit big in Italy. So I'm waiting for that call from an Italian operator to do New York Slice in Italy because, you know, it's happening.

55:05now like one of the people that i met there was the uh giuseppe from uh stella pizza in milan and it's from the guys uh who own uh bar paradiso which is like one of the best natural wine bars in milan and they're doing it's like a full-on new york slice place like uh ninja turtle stuff on the wall okay they're they're camping it up a little bit yeah they had to they had to have like they had to smuggle in the wood peels and stuff i mean it's like baker's pride it's a morety horny which is a great deck oven electric um but yeah no there's uh there's there's still a lot that that they won't i don't see a baker's pride showed up in italy yeah someone might i mean just as like nostalgia for some american i mean if you really wanted to do the full like look yeah the look yeah but the performance of the electric ovens is important and it was busy i mean it was like all the cool kids were there and it was it was awesome so we started milan um we also went to Confine, which is Francesco's pizzeria.

56:07He's originally from Salerno in the south, but he opened a pizzeria in Milan, number two in Italy, number four in the world from one of these lists. We did the tasting menu. The kids just had like a margarita pizza and they loved it. But he does this like fried pizza. He did like this calzone with like a gemberry rosso in it. Like, I mean, it was really a little fancy for me, but the core pizza was just great. Hard to argue with. And Francesca was amazing, gave me a tour of his kitchen, super state-of-the-art kitchen. My friend Henry made me the reservation from, this is an Instagram, I don't know if you know, Al Dente Life.

56:52I don't know, I'll follow. He's from Taiwan. Good name. Some restaurants, but he studied and worked in Italy for a while. So he knows his Italy recommendations. And he does kind of like on the street interviews with chefs in Taipei. Cool. And Henry's an amazing guy. Yeah. So he made the reservation. That was great. We tried to not eat much pizza in the north. Yeah. Save that for Rome. Yeah. And then after Milan, we took, oh, Ravella da Chotto. Okay. Was incredible. That's in Milan. That's one of my favorite restaurants I went to in Italy. The pasta is incredible. Highly recommend that restaurant.

57:36And then you get Cotoletta Milanese. Oh, yeah. You got to eat local, I think, personally. And then we rented a car and we went to Parma, Modena, and Bologna. And it was a real whirlwind Amelia Romagna food tour, like constantly Trattorias, Tortellini Ambrotto. Lombarusca, Tortellini Ambrotto, all the hits. Gnocco Fritto. Gnocco Fritto. Yeah, Culatello. Yeah. I mean, it was, my family was begging for mercy after, because it was hot. Oh, Italy is hot for like five months a year. It's crazy. It was extra hot. I mean, it was like making the news hot. Oh, that's right. It was making the news. You're literally.

58:20Yeah. It was like 100 degrees, which is like, okay. You're from Texas, though. Yeah. And I was not complaining. You're good. But my family, on the other hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the north is, it's very hot because basically that whole valley is situated, it's a giant flat plain situated between the Alps and the Apennine Mountains. and it's just so the air just kind of like hangs in there and the humidity is very strong. I mean, I feel like it even was, Rome was better, even though it's further south, the humidity was not as, I mean, it was very muggy. I had never been to Parma and I had never been to Modena, so it was great to do that with all of us together for the first time.

59:10The gelato was exceptional. Oh, in Modena In Parma, Modena, and Bologna Wow I mean, it was every place There was, like, show-stopping gelato So my friend Gabriele, who owns Love in Rome Which is a specialty coffee place So they do, like, proper third-wave coffee And then they do proper, like, French-style pastries Which, like, you know, laminated croissants and things Not the Cornetto And his stuff is world, world class. So he was giving me all the recommendations. Choco in Parma, outstanding. Oh, I love that. Bloom in Modena was so, so, so good. And then Cavour in Bologna was just like on another level entirely from all of them.

1:00:01Anthony, tell me about where you land on Gelato. I think you gave me the best rec in Naples, the gay olden rec was we went back twice. What do you look for in a really good gelato? So my friend Grace, who was going to school in Bologna, and then she was working in Milan. So we had dinner with her. She's originally from Mexico. We worked together in San Francisco. But she was studying gelato, studying pastry in Italy. And she was like, one of the first things you need to look for, okay, is when the gelato is in the case and it's piled up super high, red flag. You know, probably just walk out. Super smart observation.

1:00:48Makes perfect sense. Now, if it's level in the containers but uncovered, still not what you want. What you want is the metal lid. They're in the round containers and there's a lid on the gelato. You cannot see the gelato. Yes. Until they open the lid. Yes, and Gay Olden is exactly that. And you have to, like, kind of guess sometimes what the flavor is because you can't see it. Yeah, and some of those places don't even let you do tastes either. So you just got to roll with it. It's not America. Customer's not always right. Yeah. Sometimes you just have to be like, okay. Take a shot. Yeah, exactly.

1:01:23But that's what we're looking for. And then there's all these places, at least Chaco and Bloom are very big in this, like, it's like, whatever, new school, old school. like where they're basically like, they're no preservatives, none of these binders, none of the chemicals, things like that. And then really trying to source, you know, seasonal ingredients and things like that, local ingredients. One of the things I found out is that they are, they have been growing mango in Sicily now. And so they're, they're able to, some of these tropical fruit like sorbetos and things, they're able to source even locally.

1:02:00That's very cool. What's your first flavor and your second flavor when you're judging a gelato shop? I pretty much order the same thing everywhere. I'll taste like when I was with them, you know, my wife is like, she's always trying new things. My youngest son's trying new things. But for me, I'm pretty locked in to either chocolate and Fiori Latte or chocolate and crema. Crema, yeah. Definitely always grab crema myself. And I like to add a little panamontata on there, the whipped cream. If you can get that, please do. No pistachio though. Yeah. And no, I mean, like, I guess I'll try a lot of different things.

1:02:37But, okay. I'm projecting. That's my, I go chocolate, fiori latte, and then pistachio. Those are my three. Sure. I mean, and I love pistachio. And, you know, I think that, like, if they're sourcing from Sicily, especially too, I mean, it's like, I think that's a great thing. But, again, locally, crema is really, in Emilia Romagna, I feel like that's a signature flavor for them. And there they do it so simply. Like there's not vanilla even or like lemon zest sometimes you'll find in Rome, crema with those in there. It's really just eggs and cream and sugar. And that's it. And great products. Yeah.

1:03:25So you leave Emilia-Romagna, do you head down to Rome then? Yeah. So we did all of the, you know, I mean, Osteria is like Mirasole, which was like number one. Yeah. You know, I mean, it was literally named number one Osteria in Italy. And it was an incredible experience. But we dropped off the car in Bologna and then we took the train to Rome. And it was like full on pizza from like for five days. I think we ate at 11 pizza places. Oh, cool. You know, starting in the airport at like 6.30 a.m. with Aliche, which is like a chain Alice pizza. I don't know if it's called Alice or Aliche, but it's a chain everywhere.

1:04:08Not very good. No offense to whoever's behind that. But, you know, still it was in the airport. You were dropping off the – yeah, you were taking the train to the airport and you just said that's where you're going. Yeah, we had got up super early and we arrived and we needed something to eat before we went on the, you know, the Airbnb check-in like adventure. Because then we had to change from Termini to the subway to go down to Stachio. But some went to some of my favorite places. So for Tonda, which is the round, thin and crispy style, we went to Arota. Oh, my God. It looked amazing. Your videos, everything.

1:04:47Oh, my gosh. It's very, very good. It's part of this new school wave of people doing—like, Tonda is generally old school. The way it was done was not a ton of care in its production. It's a high volume. It was a value proposition. Yes. Cheap pizza, yeah. Yeah, and also late, open late. You know, I remember when I first, you know, went to Rome 25 years ago, I was like, oh, there are restaurants in Europe that stay open past 11 at 11 p.m. And it's always the like Roman style pizzerias. They're open super late. And they're just like cranking them out. But Tonda, each one is like perfectly presented and beautiful at Arrota and great ingredients and just a lovely place.

1:05:36I mean, just great, great pizza. And then went to some old school places that I'd never been before, Pizzeria Ostienza, which was awesome. Just fun. High, high energy. Frenetic. Hectic. No one spoke English. You know, had to fumble my way through the whole order in Italian, but they were super cool about it. And we loved the pizza. and then normally I'll go to 180 Gramey because I think it's so responsible for this revolution That's a reservation place, right? Yes. Mauricio and I were in Rome last fall and we couldn't book there. They have a takeout and delivery at the original location in Cintocelli so if you want to just try it and you don't have a reservation that's the move but it's also Cintocelli it's out there Which a lot of the best food is a little bit out of the ways in Rome.

1:06:34We then, for the Talio places, we did Fratelli Trecca, which is amazing. It's the guys from Pantera. Yeah, which is closed recently, I saw. Yeah, but then it reopened in Milan. Oh, okay. But I didn't get a chance to go there because it was like the day we were leaving. Okay. Good to know. But Fratelli Trecca is incredible. and it was everyone's favorite. We also went to Roover, which I think is like maybe only a year old. And so Alessandro Roover, he was a like worked under Banchi for a very long time and he's just a wizard. I mean, I had a rabbit ragu slice from there. Oh, beautiful. It was probably one of the best bites of food that I had in all of the whole trip of Italy.

1:07:25It was, the flavor was insane. And I was kind of like, he like gave it to me because I was ordering pretty basic because for the kids, it was like mortadella and margarita and like, you know, and he's like, you got to try the rabbit. And I was like, okay. You're like wild choice here for a topping. Yeah. Okay. But it was awesome. What's the acidity on that? There's got to be something. Exactly. Yeah. It was, it had this beautiful, bright acidity. It was with peppers. So kind of the way they do polo and pepperoni. like the classic Roman braise. Yeah. But it was with rabbit and it was like there was this really nice bright acidity and then the fruitiness flavor from the peppers from the sweet peppers and the tomato sauce that it was in.

1:08:11It was just fantastic. What's the cheese element? None. If any, there's none, right? No. It was just the ragu on top. Yeah, ragu on top. Yeah. That Roover was great. We ended up going there twice. So cool. Roover. Yeah. He followed his bosses is just name the spot after your name. Yep. Just do it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, and Roover is a memorable name amongst Italians. Same as Falco. I'm just like, you know, possibly Pizzeria in your future. Yeah, it would be a good name for a pizzeria. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. And then we went to Frumentario, which was just named number one slice pizza in Italy by the top 50 pizza list.

1:08:57And it was amazing. And my cousin, who is a doctor, and she lives in Rome from the Falcos who stayed in Sicily, she met us there. And, you know, we just, we all loved it. It was great. And, yeah, she was giving us all our advice on how to survive with the electrolytes. It was hot. It was very hot. We had an outdoor dinner at Piatta Romano, which is a great classic Roman trattoria. And for when we first got there for my son's birthday and it was just like we were dying and like we wanted to sit inside. And so then the next restaurant, we were like, OK, we'll sit inside. And then we went and sit inside and we were dying because the air conditioner was so weak.

1:09:42And it was like we couldn't win. So but that's why the slices are nice. You can just grab a slice and keep moving. Keep the breeze going. Keep the air going. Yeah. Yeah, so we also checked out a new slice place called Nonare in Garbatella, and it was from the split of Pantera. So Pantera closed. Oh, one of those things. Yeah, that's the pizza world, man. That pizza was great. Marisa and I loved our slice there. Yeah. And I'm trying to stay neutral because they're all very nice guys to me. But they split up. And so, you know, one group is now Nonare and Garbatella, and then Fratelli Trecca is the other group.

1:10:24And I think they're going to reopen, and they also are the ones who kept Pantera. Like the lease of that location. Yeah. And so we'll see what happens if Pantera reopens in Rome. But in the meantime, Fratelli Trecca is amazing. And then for the Pizza Paula, we went to Campo di Fiore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is great. The pizzetta actually is the move there. For sure, yeah. So good. Yeah, so good. And then Roscioli, of course, is kind of a must stop. You just go one, two, four and oh to Roscioli. It's there, right. And then with the Pantheon in between. Right there, close, yeah. Which I always go to the Pantheon because it's just, to me, the most amazing building on planet Earth.

1:11:05And I can't go to Rome without it. And I don't want to bury the lead, too. It's like you went to some amazing spots with your family. I don't want you to come off as like a psycho. Like you went to like historical sites and went to. Yeah. Like you were at the embassy I saw on social media. Yeah, we got a private tour of the U.S. embassy, which was super cool. So cool. I think that was from the cookbook. The guy who works there was a fan of the cookbook and went to some of my pizza places clients. So that was great. I mean, what a nice guy. And it's in this like palazzo that has all this history.

1:11:38Oh, yeah. We went to museums in Parma, Modena. Yeah. Bologna, Rome. We went to multiple museums. We went to the Caravaggio exhibit. Oh, cool. Which they re-released tickets, so we got up at 8 in the morning to get on this crappy website and try to get on them. The museum that we went to in Bologna, Palazzo Poggi, highly recommend. One of the craziest museums in Italy. It's from the medical school of Bologna, which is the oldest university in the world. It started in 1088. And they have all these like skeletons and, you know, things in formaldehyde and wax like recreations of deformed, you know, creatures and things.

1:12:23And very cool, very goth kind of cool museum to go to. The Estense in Modena was incredible. The Estée family was super powerful. And so they collected antiques from Rome and from all over and they commissioned, like there was a Velasquez in there. It was just like, okay, we're literally the only people in this museum. And you've got these incredible pieces in there. So, yeah, culture is a big part of it. Obviously, you have a mind for detail and appreciation of art, which is pizza and other things too. So I love that. Yeah, for, you know, like, I mean, art was the idea, you know, but ended up in the pizza world.

1:13:10But, yeah, I mean, I still do illustrations for some of my clients and I did a few drawings for Upside and other clients around the world. I had no idea you did some of those drawings for Upside. Yeah, yeah, I do. I've done a lot of, I mean, I used to do a lot of art at Roberta's. Yeah, I know that. I mean, of course, I know your history. I mean, you created this identity that was iconic and influential, but you're also doing design consulting, too. I didn't quite grasp that. That's neat. Yeah. Anything else from your trip to Italy that you want to want to? You're dropping so much great stuff here.

1:13:47I just think it's really helpful and very cool. I mean, I just I love Italy so much and it's starting to become kind of like an obsession of, you know, needing to go and explore all the different areas. But I think that something like a takeaway for for people who are listening in our planning trips is like, you know, get off the beaten path. Like, yeah, Modena was amazing and there was like no tourists there. Yeah. You know, we went to a water park that was on the outskirts of Modena, you know, like just signed up, bought tickets. And it was like, like just Italian families, you know, dealing with the heat, you know, like I want to go to like all these like Trentino and like, I mean, there's so many different like off the beaten path.

1:14:44It's not just Rome and Puglia and Tuscany. There's so much in Italy. I want to go to Umbria. That's one on my list I've heard. Yes. Tuscany on a budget in the best possible way. Yeah. From locals, they told me that. Last summer, we drove to Umbria from Tuscany for just one day. We were like, why did we not spend more time there? Yeah. I definitely want to go back there. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Do you ever do tours of Italy? Have you ever been booked to? Yes. Or like with like listeners of our show? Have you ever? Yes, I have. I've done private tours and I would love to do more of those. I did a pizza tour of Rome.

1:15:28It was, you know, I promised as a pizza tour, but I, as maybe have caught on, it turns into like a Roman history tour as well. Yeah. Just because I'm, I mean, I'm really like obsessed about just Italian, not just Roman. Italian history is so incredible. It's had so many waves of interesting things. Going to the North, really, you realize, too, like how much interesting stuff was happening in the Middle Ages there and then leading into the Renaissance. But, yeah, I'd love to do that. And, you know, more than just pizza, I'm really interested in kind of all of the cuisine and going to producers.

1:16:13and that's always really great going to like, you know, I've taken people to wineries and to flour mills and things like that. So, you know, it's, I don't know if that would ever be like a full-time thing for me. There's a lot of really talented people in that space, but I think maybe it's like, you know, I'm a chef. So like that's a little bit of a something, like I'm a working chef. So I think that that kind of gets you, I mean a lot of the best things that I was able to organize in this trip and previous trips is because of my colleagues in the industry. Yeah, you can make those connections.

1:16:50Well, we do taste travels. I'm just saying. So maybe we could talk about something. Get some of the books for 26. I feel like it might – maybe in the future. I think you've really outlined why Italy is so important to you and your deep connections to industry, not just with pizza but throughout the cuisine of Italy. It's so impressive. I'm very surprised that you care so deeply about this. Not surprised, but I respect your interest in it and your deep knowledge, not just of pizza. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, one of the things that's so important about Italy is this, and it goes so far back.

1:17:33But this thing that they do where they like they are controlling the quality of the food. Yeah. And it's not just about money. And yes, there are some, you know, volume produced things, but they are there is. And I guess if you are like a, you know, real like diehard, like kind of libertarian American or whatever, it might look like it's like overregulation or and maybe it harms their GDP or whatever. things like this but like it's hard to argue with the end result of like you know like uh like the the slow food movement you know and um the the like the you get snack foods like one of our favorite things to do is just go to grocery store and get junk food for the kids like snacks to have at the house but i mean even those you look at the ingredients and it's like this is not bad really it's not that bad you know i mean there was like these like pastries that we were getting and it was like they're sourdough you know like they're like have a long they have a natural 11 fermentation fermentation yeah i mean and and it's like there's no glyphosate are illegal bromine flour is legal bleach flour is illegal like they've they've they're protecting their heritage and food is an important part of their heritage along with art and culture and literature and music and they are, they guard it, you know?

1:18:58I mean, and yeah, they're very good at making money, but they're tempering that with this guarding of the quality of what they, of their life and, you know, of things that they make. And maybe it's more inefficient, but, you know, like - Bless them for that. We don't need efficiency. It's all about efficiency. It's not. Yeah. we'll wrap and just like let's return to New York. We talked about upside just in general. What's exciting you on the pizza scene right now? Like new openings or even established places. I know it's a broad question, but always want to get your take. Yeah. I mean, I haven't been back since the, the, the boys got their like groundbreaking review by the person.

1:19:45But Cheris is like, I went when it was still, I went like three times when they were still doing slices. Yeah. Spend some time with them and like, it's great. I mean, I love what they're doing. I love the use of the high quality Italian products and then high quality American products. I did a project in Pennsylvania recently in Littitz called Cavalo. And I used the Caputo Brothers mozzarella for the first time and I loved it. And they're using that mozzarella and that's, I love to see that. It's awesome. It's a really, it is a different mozzarella. It's very special, naturally fermented. It's really deep in flavor.

1:20:22It's very good.

1:20:26I'm excited to, you know, I would like to see, and I've had some people talking to me about like Roman style, like Tonda pizza happening. So I see some stuff maybe coming down the pipeline in that area. It's been launched a few times over the past 15 years. Yeah, like Marta. Marta, yeah, I think of Marta a lot. I think it's got to be done the right way, which is it's got to be just a box and cheap and volume. And you got to tell people, look, don't get this pizza delivered. Don't take it to go. Sit down. That's a lot of rules for a New Yorker. I know. I know. It just might not work in the city, unfortunately.

1:21:09Yeah. I got to give a shout out to Upside alum who worked at Upside and Norm's Rosario. And he just opened a place called Alvo's. Oh, okay. And on, I think it's Court Street or Smith Street. I think it's on Smith Street. And he's doing some really interesting stuff. It's like, you know, it's kind of like in the vein of Diamond Slice, if you've been there. It's also great. It's in Greenpoint. it's in the vein of kind of like hey like this is like you know old school New York pizza we're gonna have salad pizza we're gonna have buffalo chicken pizza it's gonna have too much cheese on it it's gonna be like you know like what's a direct fermentation like whatever man like they're just doing you know like kind of reviving that kind of 80s like more is more New York pizza yeah I mean the salad slice and salad pie out on Long Island you think about the popularity of that, bringing that and channeling that in Brooklyn would be cool.

1:22:11It's new to me. Yeah. It's my old neighborhood. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Check that out. Alvo's. And it's a cool space. And Rosario's just a great operator and a great guy. He deserves a lot of credit. He's worked really hard in the business. He worked at Badia when I first met him. He was there. The guy's been a student. Made the rounds. He worked at Best Pizza. He's a student of the game. Best Pizza. He finally got his, yeah, I mean, Best Pizza is always amazing. Yeah. You know, anything Frank's doing, I want to be, you know, I want to be there eating it. The F &F series is great, like what they're doing.

1:22:47So I look forward to going to another one of those. Yeah, those are fun. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's some, someone's plotting something right now. Well, probably the time we run this, there'll be a few more openings. I'm just going to wrap it there, Anthony. It was such a great catch up. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining the show. Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure. I appreciate it.

1:23:12This is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Abarbanal and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell Logo and guest illustrations by Ellie Skrzat Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com And make sure to subscribe to our newsletter To keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste