When Tony Gemignani walks into somebody else’s pizzeria, he reads the counter. Parm packets, sugar packets, a tomato can left out. Those are clues about who supplies them, and sometimes that tells him what the pizza is going to be like before he orders.
If you don’t know him: 13-time World Pizza Champion, and the first non-Neapolitan to win the World Pizza Cup in Naples. He owns Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco and Pizza Rock in Las Vegas, his Slice House franchise has awarded 150 units, and he founded the International School of Pizza.
I’m fascinated by Tony and everything he’s done in the pizza world. He’s inspired me, and he took the time to answer ten questions so you can learn a little more about who he is.
Tony and I are friends. We’ve made pizzas together at my Airbnb in San Francisco, hung out in Boston, and we share the exact same birthday, August 23. What impresses me most is that, as busy as he is, he always makes time for kindness.
Some of his answers surprised me. 400 grapevines, fruit trees, gardening, classic cars, vintage Star Wars toys, comics and baseball cards.
What are you obsessed with that has nothing to do with pizza?
A lot of things. Farming. I have fruit trees and a small vineyard with just over 400 vines. I love to garden as well. I have always been into classic cars, vintage toys especially Star Wars, comics and baseball cards.
Who taught you the most about pizza making, and what’s one thing they taught you that you still do today?
Probably Graziano Bertuzzo. When I got my master certification in Italy before I started my school, I learned a lot about preferments, which I still use in my dough today.
What’s one detail you care about that customers never notice?
How we make our dough, especially the fermentation process and preferments.
Next month you’re making pizza at home for someone you love. One style, as good as you can make it. What is it, and how long do you ferment the dough?
I may make what I have been making a lot of lately, and that’s a tavern style pizza, which is a cracker thin. My son has fallen in love with this pizza, so the fermentation isn’t long. It’s about 24 to 36 hours, but the process to making my style of cracker thin does take a little time. Once the dough is ready, then I would roll it out using a rolling pin, dock it, par-bake it, then trim it, top it, and cook it. After the bake, cut it into squares and finish it.
For that pizza, what flour, cheese and tomatoes are you using, and what are you baking it on?
Well, that pizza I am using Ceresota flour, a combination of Grande mozzarella, white cheddar and provolone, along with Stanislaus tomatoes. My blend for this particular pizza is three parts Tomato Magic with one part Super Dolce, blended with an immersion blender. I would bake this pizza on two Baking Steels, one positioned toward the top and the other at the bottom of my oven, at 525 degrees Fahrenheit.
When you walk into someone else’s pizzeria, what’s the first thing you notice?
I typically see how clean it is, along with checking out certain things that you’ll notice to see who they buy from. Anything from Parm packets to sugar packets to tomato sauce cans, etc., that are hanging around. I like to see the cheese that they are using, so I look for any boxes or see if I notice a type of shred or pre-shred. If you see what type of tomato sauce and cheese that they’re using, or if you could tell who they’re buying from, sometimes that could determine how the quality is. I also look at the type of oven they’re using, and how they are preparing their dough from mixer to mixing to hand stretching, etc.
What’s the one thing a home cook should fix to make better pizza?
Typically home cooks tend to put too many ingredients on before the bake, and it’s important to remember about the ingredients that go on after the bake. Most home ovens only go up to approximately 500 to 550 degrees, so most of the time it’s important to use a high gluten, high protein flour, or a browning agent that can help brown your dough in an oven that’s at that temperature. Cheese is another important ingredient. A low moisture whole milk mozzarella cooks better at that temperature. Using two Baking Steels is important as well, not just one.
What’s a book that has nothing to do with food that changed the way you think?
The Old Man and the Sea.
What’s the best meal you’ve ever had that wasn’t pizza?
Mama’s in Hawaii.
I’m guessing that’s Mama’s Fish House in Paia, Maui. If I have it wrong, I’ll fix it.
When did you know pizza was going to be your life?
When I made it for the first time for a customer. When I had just turned 18 years old and started in the business.
Three things I took from this
Preferments. Tony still uses the preferments he learned in Italy. That stood out to me. Decades of making pizza, and the fundamentals are still the fundamentals.
What goes on after the bake. He says home cooks load up the pie before it goes in and forget what belongs on it when it comes out. That one costs nothing to fix.
Read the counter. The Parm packets, the sugar packets, the cans left out. He’s been doing this long enough that the room tells him the story before the pizza does.
Here’s how I set up my own oven, two steels and all.
Thank you Tony.
Who should get the ten questions next? Send me a note and tell me.
About the Author
Andris Lagsdin invented the Baking Steel in 2012, after reading in the Wall Street Journal that steel conducts heat better than stone and grabbing a plate off the floor of his family’s steel shop. He launched it on Kickstarter that August, Kenji Lopez-Alt tested it for Serious Eats saying it beat his favorite pizza stone, and over 200,000 home cooks have one today.
Every Baking Steel is still made at Stoughton Steel Company in Hanover, Massachusetts, the shop his father started in the 1970s. Before Baking Steel, Andris cooked under Todd English and spent fifteen years in the family steel business. He is the co-author of Baking with Steel with Jessie Oleson Moore.
He teaches free online pizza classes every month and makes pizza almost every day.
In 2026 he launched the 72-Hour Pizza Dough Mix, the same recipe he has been teaching for over a decade, now in a bag. Just add water.