- [Nancy] I think pizza fits into that category of
beloved foods in the same way fried chicken does,
and buttermilk pancakes and ice cream sundaes.
Not only is it the flavor, the experience, the memories,
but I think that it's one of the categories of food
that sort of just lights up your life.
- [Matt] I had already worked in a pizzeria.
It's actually funny because the first time
when we got our first batch of dough made,
Nancy had no idea that I had ever touched pizza dough before
or knew how to shape it.
So, she saw that happen for the first time,
I think you were a little - Yep. (laughs)
- Startled, and, well, pleasantly surprised
and so I think that she knew that
at that particular point we were gonna be in good hands.
- [Nancy] My roots are really in bread baking.
That's what my focus was for so many years.
It had been a long-term plan of mine to figure out
how to make pizza.
The intrigue with pizza for me came about
when I was in Arizona at Pizzeria Bianco.
It was the first time that I actually tasted pizza
that was much more complex than just doughy cardboard
with melted cheese and tomato sauce.
It was eye opening for me
that pizza could actually taste so delicious.
I first started eating Roman-style pizza in Rome (chuckles).
Obvious place to try it.
- [Matt] In Rome you'll find several types of pizza.
The style that we've chosen to duplicate is the one
that is sold by the weight.
I was introduced to it by Nancy.
She said, "You need to try this place.
"You need to see this, this is
"kind of a very seminal place for me."
There's no fire involved, but it was more about
how the structure of the dough was chewy,
had some crackly-ness to it.
And when the opportunity came for this property
and for this idea of doing pizza by the slice,
we thought, well, this would be a really good
kind of idea to introduce to this neighborhood.
You'll find your Margherita, you'll find a Pomodoro,
you'll find, you know, mushroom pizza,
one potato particularly, the potato pizza, which is
olive oil, sea salt, potatoes, sliced very very thinly,
sometimes speckled with rosemary
that gets baked onto the pizza.
We offer one here.
So potato pizza starts as all of our pizzas start off,
we knock out the dough, and we break it down into loaves,
and we let them sit for roughly about one to two hours.
So they can rest, and then they're easily stretched
into like three and 1/2 feet.
So the potato pizza is very particular,
because that's the one where we actually start
with the ingredients raw first.
So we take thinly sliced potatoes, and we lay them
kind of shingled onto the dough, and then we season it
with extra-virgin olive oil and sea salt,
and then we bake them in the oven.
It accordions out into the oven, and then we bake it
just for a little while,
and then we take it out halfway through,
and then we fill in the patches with the rest
of the potato, and then we let it rest,
and then we top it with mozzarella, fontina,
a small amount of black truffle cheese
which is called sottocenere,
and we finish it with a little bit of fresh rosemary
and olive oil and a touch more sea salt.
Nancy was really influenced on
this style of sausage pizza from Panicale in Umbria
where Nancy lives.
It was a pizza of just panna, mozzarella, sausage,
and red onions.
So with that, we keep the same light ingredients.
We have a slew of mustard greens
which have a very peppery, pungent flavor.
We do the panna.
We do a mixture of onions on top,
and then the sausage,
which will cut through the really delicious flavor
of the crust because the crust itself has so much flavor.
And then we bake it off with just a touch of fontina
and then olive oil and fennel follow.
- [Nancy] We wanted to make it very authentic,
all the way up to the way that it was sold.
And the way that it's sold in Rome is by the weight,
which is really the only way you can be able to charge for
a pizza that is that long.
These are not individual, personalized pizzas.
- [Matt] So when I first started going
to the Antico Forno Campo De' Fiori,
they will be blunt with you and just say,
"How much would you like?
"This much or that much?"
And then we go, "Oh, we want that much, please."
And they cut it, and so it was through that experience,
where we're like, "Oh, man! That is great!"
- [Nancy] But what's important, whatever the style it is,
is that the same care and thought has to go into
the crust and what's on top,
and that's what makes a perfect pizza.