The world’s most pizza-obsessed individuals convene for 3 days of competitors, camaraderie and cheese in Las Vegas
How a lot mozzarella can the human physique deal with? I’d spent seven hours the day earlier than exploring the query as I walked the marinara-colored carpet of the Worldwide Pizza Expo, the world’s largest conference for the pizza business. One of many promoting factors — or perils — is being surrounded by an infinite provide of pizza. Scrumptious, just-out-of-the-oven bottomless pizza made by probably the most proficient names within the enterprise. Sadly for me, willpower isn’t my robust go well with.
Six thousand miles from Naples, the birthplace of pizza, the expo has introduced 1000’s of individuals from each nook of the worldwide pizza business to Vegas for 39 years. They arrive for typical convention experiences — seminars, networking, devices and components from greater than 400 exhibitors. Some come to battle in pizza-making competitions or the “World Pizza Video games” — on a regular basis pizzeria duties become sports activities, like quickest pizza field meeting or dough stretching.
“It’s virtually just like the pizza Olympics and the Tremendous Bowl of pizza multi function,” stated Tony Gemignani, who’s like Michael Phelps-slash-Tom Brady of the expo. He’s a restaurateur, writer and pizza acrobatics world champion many occasions over who’s gained a number of Guinness World Information.
For pizza insiders, it’s like summer season camp, the place they’re assured to see associates from all around the world. Folks have gotten engaged right here. They discover inspiration to chase pizza ambitions and be taught abilities to higher pursue them. Or simply discover a new pepperoni they actually like.
A pizza convention isn’t any place for laborious pants. I modified out of denims into stretchy slacks on the airport earlier than arriving on the 3.2-million-square-foot Las Vegas Conference Heart.
The Italians congregating within the foyer have been a useful indicator I’d discovered the expo. I adopted them into the primary corridor, an unlimited expanse that smelled like recent baked crust and appeared to stretch on in perpetuity.
The primary moments have been as hectic as getting out of a subway station in Tokyo. Businesspeople all over the place. Vivid lights. Futuristic know-how. Mascots. Some cubicles had build-outs with the manufacturing worth of off-Broadway musicals. There have been mini eating places to woo potential shoppers. One had a backyard terrace for “alfresco” eating the place an accordion participant and two guitarists performed on pretend grass surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Many introduced large ovens to bake recent pizza, meatballs and focaccia, or fridges to serve wine and Sicilian soda.
A rookie could be inclined to seize any morsel they may discover. However I’d been ready for this second.
“If you end up there, you’ll be tempted by every little thing,” Scott Wiener, 41, pizza historian and proprietor of Scott’s Pizza Excursions, warned me per week earlier than the present.
Along with the meals excursions, Wiener is an award-winning columnist and a daily on TV. He’s been coming to the Vegas expo since 2007, first as a fledgling pizza author and now as a speaker, decide and tour information.
“Should you’re simply seeking to have one thing that tastes good, the very best meals to eat is all the time not the businesses which might be promoting a product that goes on a pizza,” he stated. “It is going to be the businesses promoting flour or ovens.”
He was my pizza North Star, guiding me by means of the expo with confidence. The one concern can be sticking to his recommendation.
I used to be paralyzed with indecision after I stopped to take images of a man rolling out pizza dough. It was the sales space of Dang Brother Pizza from San Diego, whose specialty is making pizza in classic firetrucks refurbished with wood-fired ovens.
“Would you like a pizza?” the dough curler requested.
An entire pizza? For me? I used to be shocked. I’d been anticipating samples, and now I had a complete piping-hot Neapolitan-style pepperoni pie. It was unattainable to place down after the primary slice. I ate a second and pressured myself to present the field to a bunch of individuals standing close by. I would as nicely have been dropping a pet off at a shelter. What sort of monster provides away an ideal pizza?
I refocused on Wiener’s recommendation and went for the oven makers.
Civilians can’t attend the expo, however one of many hottest cubicles was for the house cook dinner: Ooni pizza ovens, the petite, transportable ovens that would assist anybody develop into a pizza chef.
Ooni employed some large names to demo their ovens on the present, corresponding to Dan Richer, 42, an expo common and proprietor of Razza — the Jersey Metropolis pizzeria that led the New York Instances to query whether or not New York’s greatest pizza was truly in New Jersey.
Richer’s first Expo was proper out of faculty. He hoped to open his personal pizzeria in the future and was mesmerized by the tools and demos. He’d tasted each tomato and investigated each flour. Now 20 years into his pizza profession, he comes again to the expo with that very same sense of marvel.
“I simply really feel like a child in a sweet retailer,” Richer stated. I swear, his eyes twinkled when he talked about it.
I spent the remainder of the day close to the pizza competitors stage the place Wiener stated you would pattern prize-worthy leftovers. My pocket book was stained with pizza grease. I’d had not less than six slices, amongst different snacks, and never practically sufficient water. On my approach out, I handed somebody with a pepperoni slice and instantly craved extra.
Bloated and reeling, I peeled myself away from bed to make it to Gemignani’s annual 8:30 a.m. “Making Pizzas With Tony Gemignani” workshop. Attendees pay an additional $250 to get a crash course from the legend in dough making, sauce 101 and the variations between fashionable pizza kinds.
“I like my grandma somewhat bit fried,” he stated, going over the artwork of the grandma pie.
After, a mass of individuals lined as much as get their books signed and take selfies with Gemignani. I observed one viewers member — James Liyu, who owns a takeaway pizza spot in Melbourne, Australia — make a beeline for one among Gemignani’s assistants.
“I used to be simply looking for out methods to tweak my dough somewhat bit,” stated Liyu, who flew greater than 18 hours to attend the expo.
“You understand going to Mecca?” Liyu stated. “That is like going to the Mecca of pizza.”
His objectives have been easy: Liyu wished to make his pizza higher and discover a mentor. In a day and alter, he succeeded in doing each. Gemignani’s workshop had been eye-opening, Liyu stated, and he had already met somebody who’s been in pizza for 40 years that will fly out and assist him on the store.
The seminars have been a godsend; they have been instructional, but in addition a time to relaxation your toes.
I used to be elated to take a seat for an hour at a panel dialogue on women-owned pizzerias. Victoria Tiso of Louie and Ernie’s Pizza — carrying a pair of customized sneakers the Bronx pizzeria lately made with FILA — advised me it was comforting to listen to different ladies’s experiences earlier than she takes over her household’s enterprise. Most of us within the room have been ladies, a departure from the principally male scene on the expo, though the variety of feminine attendees is rising.
Then there was pizza advisor Scott Sandler’s session on cashew cheese. I’d thrown away samples from vegan cheese corporations on my first day, however I ate 4 of Sandler’s slices. The ricotta-like “cheese,” was straightforward to make at house and unbelievable. Extra bewitching, I didn’t really feel worse after consuming them.
I couldn’t say the identical after my RockStar power drink, or “pizza cookie” or canned “pizza wine” (not pizza flavored, simply goes with pizza). I broke into an emergency salad I packed.
The one factor that eased my ache was check driving the Palazzolo Cheese Hog. It’s a 200-pound business cheese grater that may shred 100 kilos in minutes. The machine was invented within the Nineteen Eighties by Pete Palazzolo, an engineer and son of Sicilian immigrants who often acquired caught on shredding responsibility when his nonna made pies. Now it’s a pizza prep recreation changer. You haven’t lived till you’ve pressed towards its stainless-steel deal with and watched a brick of mozzarella flip into confetti. It was a pleasure no kitchen gadget may ever replicate.
Day two wrapped up with a “block celebration” on the freestyle acrobatics finals. A panel of judges — all pizza specialists, some grasp tossers themselves — sat prepared with whiteboards to attain the rivals on their efficiency flinging disks of pizza dough over their heads, between their legs and behind their backs on stage.
Not less than it appeared like pizza dough. The disks are inedible. The impostors are made with flour, water and considerably extra salt than you’d discover in a pie at your neighborhood pizzeria. The salt bomb beefs up the dough’s density so it doesn’t tear as simply — essential for the pizzaiolo-meets-flair bartender competitors.
The youngest contestant was Michael Testa, who competed in a “The way you doin’?” T-shirt. Again house in Colonia, N.J., Testa’s day job is working at his household’s two pizzerias: Jersey Boys Pizza and Carmine’s Pizza Manufacturing facility. He’s been a pizza acrobat for greater than a decade — regardless that he’s solely 18. When he was seven, a video of him tossing dough went viral, and the remaining was historical past.
“You know the way individuals go to Disneyland, or they exit to Aruba for the summer season? That is my trip, regardless that it includes work,” Testa stated.
Testa scored excessive sufficient to advance to the finals of the 2023 competitors, however didn’t make it to the very best of the very best finale, the place Scott Volpe, 31, of Fiamme Pizza Napoletana in Tucson, bested final 12 months’s champion by the use of break dancing. Watching hours of pizza acrobatics turned me right into a passionate fan. When the judges didn’t give Volpe 10s throughout the board, I virtually booed.
All week, individuals advised me they preserve coming again to the expo for the neighborhood. Whereas watching individuals reunite with bear hugs and tease one another throughout my 24 hours on the expo flooring, I acquired it.
“We look ahead to it yearly,” Nicole Bean, president of Pizaro’s Pizza Napoletana in Houston and an expo speaker, stated. “It’s type of like going to see our prolonged household of pizza associates.”
Paul Giannone, well-known within the business for his transfer from a profession in tech to pizza in his 50s, advised me concerning the time he virtually missed an expo. It was the 12 months after his first; he figured he didn’t must go two occasions in a row. Then the Paulie Gee’s proprietor noticed associates posting from Vegas on social media and the FOMO kicked in. He acquired on a flight that night time “and I haven’t missed one since,” he stated.
“I’ve developed so many associates on this pizza neighborhood,” stated Giannone, 69, a Brooklyn native. “And I don’t name it a pizza enterprise as a result of it truly is a neighborhood.”
All that was left was the crowning of winners for the cooking competitions. All I wished to do was sit within the bleachers and watch. Subsequent to me was Thanwa Ted, 34, the pizza chef of Peppina in Bangkok, who flew from Thailand to compete. He stated he wasn’t even jet lagged. I attempted to hide the toll consuming principally cheese, pepperoni, espresso and bread for 3 days was taking over my physique.
On my final spin of the expo flooring, I noticed a French merchandising machine that promised to supply a “recent and artisanal” pizza in three minutes. SMART PIZZA Julia V2 — a 7½-foot-tall contraption — has an oven able to reaching 750 levels (not fairly as sizzling as a correct Neapolitan, however lots for New York fashion).
We held up our digital camera telephones because the contact display screen counted down, till, voilà! A pizza field emerged like a tape from a VCR. The 12-inch Margherita inside had a toasty crust, melty cheese, shiny tomatoes and inexperienced basil.
What did the robotic pizza style like? I’ll by no means know. I’d have tried a slice if I didn’t have a debilitating pizza hangover.
