Tips from the Pros: Top Chefs on Creating an At-Home Pizza Parlor

By Emily Hsieh
January 4, 2010

With the recent spate of high profile, classically trained chefs opening pizzerias around the country, the comfort food is more gourmet—and more ubiquitous—than ever. We sat down with Stephan Samson, executive chef of Pizzeria Ortica in Costa Mesa, California (below, left), who cut his teeth on many a Michelin starred restaurant in Italy, and Mathieu Palombino, owner of Motorino (above, left), a Brooklyn-based restaurant (and favorite of Frank Bruni of The New York Times and chef Mario Batali) that added a second location in Manhattan this fall, to get the rundown on all the goods and tips we need to make topnotch pies at home.

For novices, Palombino of Motorino suggests starting with dough bought at your favorite local pizzeria (“It’ll be well-made, and you don’t have to go through the headache and mess of making your own,” he says). More ambitious cooks may want to give it a go themselves, in which case Samson of Pizzeria Ortica says that a KitchenAid mixer with a hook attachment makes the process a lot easier than trying to knead dough by hand.

Though both chefs acknowledge the best pizzas are hand-stretched to get a nice outer crust, they also know there’s definitely a learning curve before you can toss your dough like a pro. A rolling pin is a solid substitute—stick to a simple wooden one with a rolling barrel flanked by two handles. The two also agree on the importance of a peel, or a wooden plank on which you can assemble and serve your pie, and which can also be used to transfer your pizza in and out of the oven.

For toppings, it boils down to two choices: red, with a tomato sauce base, and white (no sauce). If you’re going with the former, start with San Marzano tomatoes, which you can buy canned and puree using your hands, or a food mill, “which gives a more uniform product,” says Samson, who seasons the mixture with olive oil, garlic, salt and Sicilian oregano to make the sauce at Pizzeria Ortica. Cheese is a staple on any pie, and Samson recommends a Microplane box grater with course and fine sides that can be used for soft (mozzarella) and hard (Parmesan) varieties.

Both chefs are hard-pressed to choose a favorite combination of toppings, though Palombino likes “a white pie with a green vegetable like broccolini or spinach or brussels sprouts with a smoked meat like sausage or sopressata.” Meanwhile, Samson says “butternut squash goes really well with pancetta and pecorino,” and adds “you definitely want to hit a pizza with a good drizzling of olive oil before it goes into the oven. It’s a flavor thing. It adds a bit of richness.” To get the job done, he gravitates toward handsome, traditional copper cruets, though a plastic squirt bottle is also effective.

When you’re ready to bake, “crank your oven as high as it can go,” Palombino advises, and heat a pizza stone for about 40 minutes to ensure it’s hot all the way through. If you’re not ready to invest in a stone, he suggests stacking two aluminum sheet pans (the pair will conduct heat better than a single pan) upside down in the oven to get a smooth surface. Use the wooden peel to slide the pizza in and out of the oven, and when it come time to slice, “get a pizza cutter with a round metal blade and with some kind of protection for the hand, since it’s easy to slip and hurt yourself,” he cautions. And finally, for serving, a wooden peel has an elegantly rustic vibe, or for a more finished look, a round, flat ceramic platter will do nicely.