The Pizza Bible

RESPECT THE CRAFT

Pizza is simple. It s dough, tomato, cheese, and toppings. But as someone who has devoted more than half of my life to it, I can tell you that, like all really great, really simple things, pizza is infinite. I m still learning, still refining, still trying to make it even better every single day. And what I can tell you for sure is that pizza doesn t come down to just recipes or formulas. It s a craft. 

That one word that s why I wanted to write this book. There are hundreds of pizza books, blogs, and websites filled with thousands of recipes out there. Do we really need another one? I thought about this a lot, and here s where I ended up: when I teach home cooks and certify chefs and pizzaiolos, it s less about recipes and more about inspiring people to master the craft of pizza the techniques, the reasons to choose one ingredient over another, the art of reading the dough as you mix, shape, top, and bake it. 

Anyone can hand you a pizza recipe, and if that recipe is halfway decent, chances are you can make yourself a perfectly good pizza for dinner tonight in your own kitchen with no special equipment and not much preparation. But that s not where I want to take you.

I want to get you all the way to five-star, killer-pizzeria-quality pizza. I want you to master any style you love whether it s Chicago deep-dish or cracker-thin, a big, fluffy Sicilian pan pizza or a classic Neapolitan margherita with that authentic char blistering the edges right in your own kitchen with whatever oven you ve got. 

Is that really possible? Can you actually do all that without a real pizza oven? That s the question I get asked most often. Believe it or not, you can. It s not your oven. It s the ingredients and the techniques you use, and I m going to give you every piece of ingredient and technique advice you ll need to succeed. 

But if you truly want to get all the way to rocking restaurant-style pizza at home, there s one

Respect the Craft    
The Master Class   
Gearing Up  
Master Class Shopping List  
Part One: Theory  
Ingredients  
Part Two: Practice  
Day One  
Day Two 
Day Three  
Regional American   
Master Dough with Starter 
Tiga and Poolish Starters  
Master Dough Without Starter 
New Yorker  
New York New Jersey Tomato Sauce
Sweet Fennel Sausage    
Calabrese Honey Sausage  
Casing Sausage 
New Haven with Clams  
New Jersey Tomato Pie 
Detroit Red Top  
St. Louis  
Chicago  
Chicago Deep-Dish Dough 
Chicago Stuffed Dough  
Deep-Dish Tomato Sauce  
Chicago Deep-Dish with Calabrese and
Fennel Sausages  
Chicago Deep Dish with Spinach and Ricotta  
Fully Stuffed  
Cast-Iron Skillet   
Cracker-Thin Dough  
Cracker-Thin with Fennel Sausage  
Cracker-Thin Tomato Sauce  
Frank Nitti  
Italian Stallion
Italian Beef  
Italian Beef Sandwich  
Chicago-Inspired Cocktails  
Sicilian   
Sicilian Dough with Starter
Sicilian Dough Without Starter  
Parbaking Sicilian Dough 
The Brooklyn  
Sicilian Tomato Sauce  
Pepperoni and Sausage  
Burratina di Margherita    
Purple Potato and Pancetta  
La Regina  
Grandma
Early Girl Tomato Sauce  
Quattro Forni  
California Style   
Cal-Italia  
Multigrain Dough  
Honey Pie 
Eddie Muenster
Guanciale and Quail Egg  
Campari
Organic Three Cheese  
Eggplant and Olive  
Fig, Almond, and Monterey Jack 
Organic Dough    
Khorasan Dough  
Einkorn Dough  

TONY GEMIGNANI is the chef and owner of seven restaurants: Tony's Pizza Napoletana, Capo's, and Tony's Coal-Fired Pizza in San Francisco, Pizza Rock in Sacramento and Las Vegas, Tony's of North Beach and Slice House by Tony Gemignani in Rohnert Park. He's also the co-owner of the International School of Pizza in San Francisco. Gemignani has been making pizza for over 20 years and holds an impressive set of awards.

The Best Pizzeria in America: Tony s Pizza Napoletana   Larry Olmstead, Forbes Magazine
 
[Tony Gemingnani] approaches the craft of making pizza dough with the same intelligence and expertise as that of a pro brew master concocting an artisanal ale.   Publishers Weekly
 
A cookbook we re looking forward to this fall.   Tasting Table
 
One of the most anticipated cookbooks of ll 2014   Eater National
 
Tony Gemignani has one jealousy-inducing resume. It's full of phrases like World Champion and Best in America. And get this: it all relates to pizza.   Food Republic

You ll never look at a pizza the same way again.   Santa Rosa Press Democrat

One-stop shopping for your deepest pizza desires. Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen, Huffington Post