- It changed my life.
It became lifetime journey, became obsession.
How we take flour, water, salt,
and turn that in something really good.
Food is experience, food is memories,
and memories are very powerful.
My name is Vytauras Sasnauskas,
people call me V, Chef V.
I'm the owner of Citizen Pie pizzeria.
Citizen Pie kind of was born to represent pizza revolution.
Our mission was change the world,
the way people think about the pizza.
Throwing some wood in, make sure this fire's hot.
Whoo, it's hot.
I grew up in Lithuania.
I remember very well the first time I had pizza
and became obsessed about it.
It was only one pizzeria at that time,
in my hometown, Kaunas,
which was second largest city in Lithuania.
I still remember pizza with
the half hard boiled egg, pickles on it.
- His approach at food is a little more unconventional
than most chefs you'll meet,
which I think makes him an unbelievable chef.
There's no step-by-step recipe book.
The hydration in the air,
the activity of bacteria in the air,
everything, we take everything into account
and that's how he applies, not just the pizza,
but with the rest of his food.
- My dough is very simple.
Flour, water, salt, but it also is very complicated
because it needs to be adapted almost every day.
We add salt to the water, gives the specific mineral
but also slows down fermentation
and gives elasticity to the dough.
We feed our dough with a sourdough starter
and we feed it every day.
It's alive and it smells really good.
We add half of the flour,
and then we add our sourdough culture,
and then we add another half of flour.
We mix, we let it rest for few hours,
and then we make the dough balls.
- He has a reputation as a very exacting chef,
who, when he attempts to do something,
he's going to perfect it.
- I had a great childhood riding bicycles
and playing outside and eating Grandma's food.
My mom was in the food business.
It was a kind of regular life
except we couldn't leave the Soviet Union.
When we got independence, times were really hard
so my mom was a full supporter for my family basically.
She got sick and all of a sudden one day we lost her.
I decided that I cannot sleep in this house,
I need to change something.
When I came here I was guy with nothing,
$700 in my pocket and just a suitcase.
Things didn't go the way we planned.
We had some immigration issues.
One day, all of a sudden, we got arrested
and thrown in immigration jail
and that was very, very, very scary.
My wife chose to go to the law school
and help me with all my immigration issues,
which ended up working on very well.
Meant a lot to me, meant to a lot to us, too.
While I was dating my wife,
she was taking me to all these different restaurants
and eating the foods, the ones I couldn't afford to buy,
when I just first came here.
I was introduced to the new flavors.
I've never had Indian food, Mexican food,
Cajun food, regional American food.
All that melting pot was bubbling in my head.
- The good thing about dining out in Cleveland
is there is just so much diversity.
It's a wonderful melting pot
that's just so visual in terms of food.
- He had spent around 10 years perfecting the dough.
One day, we just thought, hey,
why don't we do this thing?
Why don't we open a pizza shop?
Just let V focus on one thing, and do one thing great.
- In terms of artisan-style pizza,
I think everybody would agree
that Citizen Pie is easily one of the best in town.
- As a chef you're always searching for some kind of
combination of the flavors.
What works, what does not work.
You walk through the farmers market,
you see the butcher is making, curing
or smoking sausage.
You get inspired through the life,
through many different things.
(machine clacking)
- Homemade salami, Croatian stuffed kulen,
smoked pork loin, dried beef.
Okay, thank you sir. - Thank you.
Every pizza at the menu has some kinda story behind it.
Our Americano Pizza was inspired
by my restaurant which I owned.
We blend toasted pistachio
with the cream and Parmesan cheese.
That's the base for our pizza.
Very good Italian sausage, Calabrian chilies for spice.
I designed this burger I love to eat at the restaurant.
I had to transfer, basically all that flavor,
into the pizza so that's how my mushroom pizza was born.
We take porcini mushrooms and we hydrate them
with some water and soy sauce.
We blend them with the Parmesan cheese
and that goes on the bottom of our pie.
It gets topped with Brie cheese, fresh mushrooms,
a local smoked bacon, red onions.
Pizza is very personal and we grow up eating pizza,
bad pizza, good pizza, mediocre pizza.
We still search and trying to make that perfect pizza.