Re: My pizza
Evelyne,
A while back, the New York Times featured an article on the growing trend toward artisanal and “back to basics” pizzas. Maybe you have already seen it, but I have set forth the article below, which I found at the website of an artisanal pizza operator (Jules):
A pizza parlor in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has a $30,000 oven that can reach 900 degrees. Another, in Scottsdale, Ariz., treats its water supply to mimic New York’s. A joint in Washington, D.C., boasts an imprimatur of authenticity from Italy.
One of the nation’s favorite junk foods is getting a makeover. Thanks to Atkins-style diets, gourmet chefs whose toppings extend as far as sashimi and heavy discounting by the big chains, the independent establishments that account for the majority of pizzerias have been getting squeezed for years. In response, many new places are dedicating themselves to the basics. Instead of stuffed crusts and Thai seasonings, the idea is to focus on pure ingredients: the dough, the cheese, the sauce.
The aim is to get people to put down those panini sandwiches and fast-food burgers and start thinking about crispy crusts and mozzarella. The percentage of all restaurant meals that were purchased from a pizza place fell to 9.10% in 2005 and has been steadily declining since 2000, when the figure was 9.89%, according to market researcher NPD Group. By contrast, traffic at sandwich and hamburger restaurants rose. And nationally, same-store sales have been flat for two years, according to a recent study by PMQ Magazine, an industry trade publication.
Pizzeria Uno, one of the country’s bigger chains, took the image problem so seriously that it dropped any mention of pizza from its name in October. The chain is now called Uno Chicago Grill.
“Pizza is just bad and bad,” says Frank Guidara, Uno’s chief executive officer, referring to pizza’s reputation of being both high-carb and high-fat.
That same challenge has joints all over the country trying different ways to reposition pizza as a purer, simpler dish. Though it steers clear of wild toppings, this back-to-basics movement has its own gimmick: playing up the pedigree and quality of ingredients. American Flatbread, a New England-based chain, touts local sausage and mozzarella handmade by local craftsmen. In Doylestown, Pa., Jules Thin Crust uses organic tomatoes for its sauce, while Pazzo! Woodfired Pizza in Dallas flies its salami in from Italy.
Indeed, some of the beneficiaries of this shift back toward pizza purity are ingredient and gear companies from Italy, pizza’s ancestral homeland. Caputo, an Italian company that sells gourmet pizza flour, says it saw a 50% increase in U.S. sales in 2005 over the year before. GI. Metal, an Italian company that sells implements like metal “peels” that slide pies into hearth ovens, opened its first U.S. warehouse last year.
Of course, authentic Italian pizza made on U.S. shores isn’t a new invention: Lombardi’s in New York City started making Neapolitan-style pie 100 years ago and continues to turn out ultra-thin, lightly blistered crusts in the same coal-burning oven. Just about every big city has its place that people have known and loved, like 55-year old Campisi’s Egyptian Restaurant in Dallas or Philadelphia’s Tacconelli’s, serving the same pizza it did in 1946. The new movement seeks to emulate those old traditions but with modern touches.
Our own pizza binge in search of the country’s hottest pies turned up some noteworthy slices. At Cibo in Phoenix, where all the pies are made by Guido Saccone, the house pizzaiolo, the crust was crisp, chewy, and tasty on its own, and was enhanced by simple toppings like fresh mozzarella and arugula. We also were taken with 2 Amys Pizza in Washington, D.C., which serves thin pies made with sea salt and extra-virgin olive oil.
Pies that are touted as authentic can vary in style and presentation. For example an otherwise tasty slice at Chicago’s Pizza D.O.C., was a little cheesier than we expected. The restaurant says that while that’s not the goal, it can happen because its authentic Italian cooking techniques mean the ingredients are never premeasured
For some restaurateurs, part of the appeal of this approach is a chance to woo healthier eaters. The artisanal-style pies are usually thin-crust, lessening the impression that a few slices translates to a massive amount of carbs, and feature fresh and sometimes organic toppings. John Ordway, the owner of Jules Thin Crust, which opened in Doylestown, Pa., last June, says he focuses on the quality and authenticity of the basic ingredients and makes his own mozzarella fresh each day. His business model, which he describes as “organic pizza in a Starbucks-type environment,” is meant to compete with upscale sandwich chains like Panera Bread. Two more units are scheduled to open this year.
The health vibe is also apparent at American Flatbread, which has nine restaurants in New England and California as well as a frozen-pizza line. The pizzas are called “flatbread” and made in a “bakery.” The chain boasts time-trusted pizza techniques, organic flour and tomatoes, mozzarella from local cheese makers, and wood-fired hearth ovens. The company’s new franchise agreement requires franchisees to source local cheese and meats and use organic ingredients, says president George Schenk.
When seeking the perfect pie at these places, experts suggest paying attention to how the pizzaiolo, or pizza maker, works the oven. Hearth ovens work by getting the stone floor hot enough to cook the pizza quickly. Each time a pie sits on the oven surface, it sucks heat away from the stone – so the pizzaiolo needs to let that spot heat up again before setting another pizza on it. It takes experience to work with a hearth oven, experts say, so it’s a good sign when you see the same pizzaiolo manning the oven night after night.
For entrepreneurs jumping into the restaurant world, so-called artisanal pizza, with its emphasis on handcrafted cuisine, is a way to tap the casual dining boom. Top casual-dining chains – think Olive Garden and Applebee’s – have been one of the brightest spots in the restaurant business, growing annually in customer traffic by around 8%, according to NPD Group. For those who can get a restaurant off the ground and bring in traffic, pizza offers relatively high profit margins. Food costs can be as low as 22% of the menu price, according to Dave Ostrander, a pizzeria consultant based in Oscoda, Mich., compared with an overall restaurant-industry average of about 33%.
While it is a growing focus of the pizza world, the back-to-basics movement is still only a slice of the scene. There are nearly 70,000 pizzerias in the U.S. today. Of those, about a third belong to the top 25 chains, which together account for more than half of all industry revenue. Unlike the upscale artisanal pizzerias, the biggest chains mainly compete with other fast foods or convenience foods. And thanks to recent growth, especially from newly opened stores, these chains have actually helped push pizza sales up – by 5.7% in 2004 over the previous year, according to market researcher Technomic.
Expansion is also on the minds of the new breed of pizza entrepreneur. Restaurants Unlimited, a Seattle-based company with 30 fine-dining restaurants around the country and $150 million in annual sales, opened Pizzeria Fondi near Seattle last month and plans to open three more units in the area this year. “There are others who are dabbling in” upscale pizza, says Don Adams, vice president of creative development at Restaurants Unlimited. “So we want to get in it.”
