Why I Love Making Pizza
The first time I walked into the kitchen at Vince's Pizzeria and Taproom, I was sixteen years old and had no idea what I was doing.
My younger brother and I got hired as dishwashers during opening weekend. Vince's in Newtown was the second restaurant in the family. The first is Vince's Pizzeria on Grant Avenue in Philly, which has been around for years. The Newtown location was brand new, and we weren't making pizza. We were washing dishes in a kitchen that was still figuring itself out.
The kitchen
If you've never worked in a restaurant kitchen, it's hard to explain what a busy Friday night feels like. Orders come in waves. The printer doesn't stop. Everyone is moving and nobody is standing still. You learn fast or you get in the way.
The kitchen at Vince's was cramped, hot, and loud. On a busy Friday there's barely room to move. Everyone is shoulder to shoulder, the oven is blasting, and you either figure out how to work in tight spaces or you get in the way. When it got too much you'd duck into the walk-in fridge or the keg cooler for a few seconds. Just long enough to cool down and reset before diving back into it.
Mark and Maggie, the managers when I was there, ran the kitchen on those busy nights. Mark was the kind of guy who could be dressing a pizza with one hand and calling out the next three orders from memory. Watching them taught me more about communication under pressure than any class ever did. In a kitchen you can't mumble. You can't assume someone heard you. You say what you need, you confirm it, and you move on.
That's where I learned that the gap between what you said and what the other person heard is where most problems live.
From dishes to dough
After a few weeks of washing dishes they let me start making pizzas. It wasn't a promotion ceremony. Someone didn't show up one night and they needed another pair of hands on the line. That's how it works in restaurants. You fill the gap.
I worked at Vince's on and off for about three or four years after that. Through high school, through summers home from college. The menu changed, the staff rotated, but the fundamentals stayed the same. Dough, sauce, cheese, heat, timing.
The pizza peel in the photo above is one of my favorite things in that restaurant. All the original workers signed it. The opening crew, the people who were there when Vince's was just an idea becoming a real place. It still hangs on the wall. It's a reminder that the people who showed up at the beginning built something that lasted.
Taking it home
At some point I started making pizza at home. Not because I was trying to replicate what we made at Vince's. You can't really do that without a commercial oven. I just missed the process. The kneading, the stretching, the timing. There's something meditative about working dough with your hands.
My setup is simple. A regular home oven with a pizza stone, or sometimes a flipped baking sheet when I'm improvising. No pizza oven, no fancy equipment. Just heat and patience.
I'm still evolving the dough recipe. Every batch I learn something. A little more hydration, a longer cold ferment, different flour. It's never the same twice and that's part of what keeps it interesting. Pizza is a system with enough variables that you can tinker forever and never run out of things to try.
The signature
I've landed on a style, at least for now. Cheese goes on the bottom, then a light layer of sauce. San Marzano tomatoes, always. I usually make two halves.
Sausage and Honey. Italian sausage, San Marzano sauce, sliced jalapeños, a drizzle of honey, and a finish of white truffle oil. The sweet-heat combination is absurd. This is the one people don't expect to like and then can't stop eating.
The Pig. Pepperoni and Italian sausage. Simple. No gimmicks. Sometimes the classics are classics for a reason.
Christmas in the mountains
This past Christmas my family went to Mont-Tremblant, Canada for a ski trip. We rented a house and I told everyone I'd handle dinner one night. I made pizza.
There's something about cooking for people you love in an unfamiliar kitchen that strips away any pretension. You don't have your usual setup. You improvise. You make it work. And then everyone sits down and eats together and for a few minutes nobody is looking at their phone or thinking about what's next. They're just eating pizza and talking.
That's the real thing I think. Not the dough or the toppings or the technique. It's that pizza is a reason to gather. It's shareable by design. You literally cut it into pieces and hand them out. It's casual enough that nobody feels like they have to perform and good enough that people remember it.
Why I keep coming back
I've been thinking about why pizza specifically. I could cook anything. But I keep coming back to pizza because it sits at this intersection of things I care about.
It's iterative. Every pizza is a hypothesis. Did the dough proof long enough? Should I have used less sauce? Was the oven hot enough? You eat the result, you take notes mentally, and you adjust next time. It's a feedback loop you can taste.
It's social. Nobody eats pizza alone in a corner. You make pizza and people show up. You bring pizza to a gathering and you've contributed something real. It's the most democratic food there is.
It's portable. I've made pizza in my parents' kitchen, in college apartments, in a ski lodge in Canada, in kitchens I'd never cooked in before. The process travels. All you need is an oven and some counter space.
It connects me to where I started. Every time I stretch a piece of dough some part of me is back in that cramped kitchen in Newtown, ducking into the walk-in to cool off, listening to Mark call out orders, learning that clear communication matters more than talent.
I don't know if I'll ever stop making pizza. I hope I don't. It's one of those rare things that has stayed consistent through every phase of my life so far. High school, college, whatever this post-graduation chapter is. The kitchens change, the people change, the dough recipe changes. But the act of making something with your hands and sharing it with people you care about? That stays.
The dough (for now)
This recipe changes every time I make it. That's not a disclaimer, it's the point. I tweak the hydration, try different flours, mess with the ferment time. The version below is where I'm at right now, adapted from Mom's Dish overnight dough. By the time you read this I've probably already changed something.
Ingredients:
- 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tbsp salt
- 1 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 3/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup olive oil
Steps:
- Combine flour, salt, and yeast in a large bowl.
- Add water in small parts, stirring with a wooden spoon until combined.
- Add olive oil and stir to incorporate.
- Dust a surface with flour and knead until the dough is elastic. A stand mixer with a dough hook works too.
- Place in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rise overnight in the fridge. Use within three days.
The overnight cold ferment is what makes this work. The slow rise develops flavor that you can't get from a quick proof. Pull it out of the fridge about an hour before you're ready to stretch and top.
The quality of the ingredients is what separates a good pie from a great one. San Marzano tomatoes, good olive oil, fresh mozzarella if you can get it. You don't need fancy equipment. You need ingredients that taste like something.
If you want more inspiration and genuinely delicious pizza recipes, check out the Vince's Pizzeria and Taproom menu. They're still making great pies in Newtown.