I own a pizzeria.
- Oh yeah?
- Yeah.
- Really, where? What kind?
- In Brooklyn.
In Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
- You from Brooklyn?
- I'm from Brooklyn.
Can I do some Brooklyn accent?
What do you got? Let's see it.
Come on.
Hey, how you doing?
Are you talking to me?
You talking to me?
What's a matter with you?
Oh, man.
I would have thought you a
Brooklynite. Man, you got me fooled.
- How about that?
- That's great!
I'm about to eat my way
through the Bay.
It's all about produce out here.
And what better way to eat it,
then on pizza?
This slice is definitely
the New York style,
but it got that California thing
happening.
It's delicious.
I'm going to visit a bunch of great
pizzerias in San Francisco,
Berkeley, and even make my way to
Napa for some pizza and wine.
First, I'm meeting up
with Patty Unterman,
owner of Hayes Street Grill,
and long time San Francisco
restaurant critic.
Patty knows everything about the
food scene out here.
Welcome to San Francisco.
It's such a beautiful city.
You've been in the food scene here
for many years
as a writer and a restaurateur.
What is the culinary scene like
here, in San Francisco?
We essentially drove culinary
culture in the country.
We have a year-round growing season.
And there's a whole culture of
farmer's markets
that kind of farm to table thing.
Our best restaurants use these
beautiful ingredients.
And that's what makes it so great.
I've constantly been hearing about
these great bakeries out here.
Whether it's The Mill or Tartine,
and all this innovative
stuff they're doing.
Our sourdough culture started
at the Gold Rush.
There's a real attention
to crust here.
If you got that base that has
character, that has flavor,
that's what a pizza is, right?
Yeah, do you know about this guy,
Anthony Mangieri?
He's a New Yorker.
And he's moved out here,
and opened up a place called
Una Pizza Napoletana.
I not only know him, I love him.
He struck me as being a religious
person, a monk.
A monk of pizza.
Do you have any tips for me,
any places that I need to go?
I certainly think that the
Cheese Board would be great.
And that's a real community thing.
Have you seen those lines?
Eighteen hundred pizzas
a day on some days.
- Yeah.
- Unreal.
It's just life in Berkeley.
- Californian.
- Yeah.
It's Californian through and
through.
Have fun eating that pizza, man!
When in the Bay, you have to hit
Cheese Board.
This Berkeley institution started as
a cheese shop.
And over time, has expanded
into a pizzeria.
They serve one vegetarian
pizza a day,
and are worker owned and operated.
Everyone gets a slice here.
Busy day today, I see.
Yeah, it's just a regular day.
- Regular day here at Cheese Board?
- Just a regular day. Yeah, yeah.
When we do busy, it goes all the
way down the corner and around.
What's the most pizzas
you've ever sold here?
I think it was well over
eighteen hundred pizzas.
Wow!
And we were all so doggone tired.
Nobody wanted count nothing.
That's incredible.
What we're famous for is doing fresh
California produce on our pizzas.
Amazing.
So we only have one choice.
We have a Pizza of the Day.
Today, we're doing one of our
classic tomato pizzas.
So the key thing about the Cheese
Board, it as started 50 years ago.
Elizabeth and Sahag Avedisian
decided they were going to open up
a little cheese store up there.
People started making little pizzas
for their lunch, the workers.
And the customers looked over the
counter and said,
"Share with us."
We want some of that.
That looks good.
They were politically active
and socially conscious.
Talked to the workers and they
turned it into a collective.
I feel real special that I'm kind of
cutting this line with you.
- I have to admit.
- I hope they don't get mad.
- Can we come through?
- Oh, yeah.
Alright.
So is that how's the pizza start?
On the flat top then get finish off.
No, they started in here
and moved over there.
What's up guys?
How are you?
So I've worked at the Cheese Board
for a year now.
Anyone can just create a pizza
and we'll try it out.
And we'll sell hundreds
of those pizzas.
We come together and decide
everything from how to operate
our business to what kind of
benefits should workers have
which is very empowering.
And how do you like working in a
system where the employees are also,
you know, owners?
I feel like that's how all job
establishments should be ran.
I mean where everybody has a voice.
Yeshi and Steve both been here
longer than me.
How many years have you
guys been here?
Thirty-eight?
Why is that embarrassing?
That's amazing!
-Thirty-eight-years.
-That's incredible!
He started when he was five.
Steve's getting me the pizza. I got
to get the famous Papi Chulo sauce.
Alright Frank. Stop with the talk.
Let's see if there's anything
to all this, right here.
This is the reality, right there.
That's the reality
and it looks amazing.
Every order gets one or two
slivers on it.
Originally, some people had trouble
cutting a pie into equal slices.
So it's just a little way to make up
for a small slice.
-Dip it right in. Pour it on top.
-Whatever works.
You can taste the flavor
of all that produce.
There's great onions and tomatoes.
Of course, the Papi Chulo
sauce on top.
Just a great slice of pizza.
You know what we're doing tomorrow?
A peach pizza.
Cheese Board has influenced
a lot of bakeries
and pizzerias in the Bay area,
including The Mill.
Here at The Mill, they're not only
baking incredible bread,
they're also milling
their own flour.
And another bonus, every night
is pizza night.
Most of our bread is
all whole grain.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
So we're all a whole grain
sourdough bread bakery.
And all our whole grain flour
we mill here fresh in the bakery
on our stone mill.
This is the brains here.
- This is the pizza brains right here?
- This is Jess.
This week we have nori in our
mostly whole grain crust.
Really grilled tomatoes, ginger,
mozzarella, provolone, togarashi.
- Just classic pizza stuff.
- Yeah, real obviously classic.
Really nice and savory.
It has really good flavor to it
from that nori, I think.
And it also just taste healthy.
It's like the kind of pizza you can
run a marathon on, you know?
The West Coast is all about
inventive toppings.
Out here you can even find tandoori
chicken on your pizza.
Zante is an Indian restaurant
and pizzeria in the Mission.
Meet Tony.
Zante's owner and the
Godfather of Indian Pizza.
One day I was trying to make
a pizza for the staff.
Yeah, yeah.
So everybody liked it so I said,
"Let's put it on the menu."
I have four different
kind of pizzas.
Masala sauce, spinach curry sauce,
potato masala, chicken masala.
Are there any other
Indian style pizzerias?
One here in San Francisco.
This guy who used to work for me.
He copied me.
He copied you, he went out.
Yeah, that happens sometimes.
That's a form of flattery, you know?
But I'm the Godfather.
The Godfather of Indian Pizza.
The pizza was born here.
No kidding?
This is the home of
the Indian pizza.
So this dough has a little bit
of a yellow color to it.
I make my own dough.
This has turmeric, some spice...
I don't want to tell you.
That's alright. You don't have to
tell me all these secrets.
It's okay.
Now,
is there any similarities between
making pizza and making naan bread?
This is actually naan bread.
- No kidding.
- Yeah
Naan has no spice but,
the flour is naan.
Got you, got you.
-What's up buddy? How are you?
-I'm good.
Frank.
-Talwinder.
-Talwinder, nice to meet you.
I'm going to make a half and half.
Half and Half.
Half of the spinach curry sauce.
Okay.
The other half is masala sauce.
Yes.
That's called mozzarella cheese.
And that's regular mozzarella
cheese?
That's regular mozzarella.
But you do the vegetables,
he does the meat?
Where's the eggplant, the eggplant?
Fresh garlic.
A lot of garlic.
Beautiful, beautiful.
A lot of cilantro.
Nice and hot.
There you go.
Does he teach you
how to make pizza?
So you learn from the Godfather?
Yeah, the Godfather.
Grandfather.
The pizza crust here
is a lot like naan.
Tony showed me the process of making
the traditional Indian flat bread.
You have to have hot hands.
You have to have good hands.
Just like making pizza?
It's experience, you know?
-And you get used to it.
-Right
Alright, should we check that pizza,
make sure it's alright?
- Oh yeah, yeah, let's go.
- Let's go.
Let's go, pizza.
Burning now!
Oh, it's out. It's okay.
-You got it?
-Yeah, he got it.
Smell good?
It smells great.
Why don't you have it inside
and eat here?
-I would love to do that.
-Yeah, please have a seat.
-Let me know how it tastes.
-I'll let you know.
We have tamarind sauce
that we make here.
And that's just mint sauce.
It's delicious.
So good. It's not too spicy, but
it has all those great India flavors.
It has freshness from these two
sauces that you just put on top.
You know, I could taste
the cauliflower.
I could taste the chicken. I can kind
of taste everything individually.
Ginger, garlic?
Ginger and then those herbs too.
Give another nice flavor.
That was in the dough.
That's in the dough.
It's really delicious.
I'm the Godfather.
You are the Godfather, indeed.
You got to have good hands.
It's not all Papi Chulo sauce
and tandoori chicken in SF.
You could also find some of the best
Neapolitan pizzas in the country.
-Hey, how you doing?
-What's going on?
-Nice to see you.
-Thanks for having me, man.
Sure, welcome.
-Thank you, thank you.
-How you been?
-I've been great. I've been great.
-Yeah! Come on in.
Wow.
It feels like a church
almost in here.
You know? The high ceilings
and the saints on the wall.
-Or the auto garage.
-Yeah, or an auto garage.
Anthony Mangieri is a pizza legend.
He started his career
on the east coast,
before settling in San Francisco.
I've been following his career
from the beginning.
And I'm super excited to spend
some time with him.
I never make the pizza
the same way.
Today, I made it with some flour
that I've never used in my life.
It's not whole wheat, but there's
definitely germ and bran in it.
-It absorbs water better.
-Right.
There's no yeast in this pizza so.
It's weird. I like a light pizza,
but I want it to be naturally leaven.
So it's a weird thing that
I'm looking for
that I basically get rarely.
That looks beautiful.
And you're after a very specific
style, is that right?
I guess so. I mean, I don't really
care about labels, honestly.
In the sense, I mean I started out
with that as my inspiration,
but it was done in an innocent kind
of a way, almost from a distance.
No one really showed me. There was
nobody doing it in the US.
It was just like my
weird interpretation
coming from New Jersey being like
this is what Neapolitan pizza
was like like a hundred years ago.
It is Neapolitan, but whatever.
It's my own weird little place.
Your place in New York that you
closed is legendary, still.
You know, people talk about it
all the time.
I was always obsessed with that.
I was like, this guy is the man.
You now what I mean? He's doing shit
his way and that's it.
I think I opened in
New York in 2004.
So, I had already been seven
or eight years actually in business.
Before that, I had a bread bakery
in New Jersey for four years called,
Sant Arsenio.
I had already felt like
I knew what I was doing.
It's not like when I opened there,
I was like, "this is my first place."
People probably thought that
because we ran it so half-ass.
And had such terrible service,
but that was all sort of my plan.
Believe it or not.
-Does it go into the refrigerator?
-No.
No, nothing. Yeah.
I just don't like what it does.
I feel like it changes the
texture of the dough.
It's never going to be as delicate.
This pizza at its best
is extremely delicate.
When do you know that that dough is
going to be the way that you love it?
That you want specifically?
Is it in the mixing process?
Or is it once you get out there
and you start cooking?
You know, usually it's when I'm
shaping. Now, I kind of know already.
I'm like, "Tonight's going
to be a stress,
or it could be kind of fun."
And then, there's still a chance that I
miscalculated, 'cause I go home
and have lunch and whatever
and then I come back and I'll--
As soon as a I walk in, the
fellow that works with me,
I'll be like,
"How's the dough look?"
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he's like,
"Looks alright."
And I open, I'm like,
"Oh my god, it's no good!"
Okay.
Should we make a margherita?
-Yeah, let's do it.
-Okay.
One ladle of sauce?
One ladle, yup.
That's my grandmother's spoon.
It's amazing I haven't lost it or
anything all these years, you know?
It's so awesome.
And then this is
the regular buffalo.
And this is the smoked buffalo.
So we're going to use
regular on the margherita.
I kind of give just whatever
I'm feeling in that moment.
Coarse sea salt.
-And, this goes all over?
-Just sprinkle around.
Yeah, even a little bit
on the crust is nice.
And then some basil.
Generous. Yeah, whatever you like.
I mean, I don't think you
can put too much.
Do you want to slide it on? So just
kind of grab it and slide it on.
-Is that it?
-That's it, man.You add some oil.
A little bit of olive oil on top.
Like in counter clockwise.
-That's cool.
-Beautiful.
Since we're doing one
just put it all the way in
that back at 1 o'clock.
-Yeah.
-Beautiful.
So I've never used shavings before.
What's the advantage of having these?
You know, it's a super old
technique in Naples.
And even when they used to use them
a lot, it was only in Naples
that you would see it.
And now there they don't
do it as much either.
It gives a big boost to temperature.
That's enough of that. So keep this
up here and move the pizza now.
I would take it out. That's it.
It's done.
Not bad. You know it doesn't
look as good as yours.
-Do you want to try it?
-Of course.
-Is it alright?
-Dude, it's... yeah.
I mean the salt mixed with like,
just all these great ingredients.
It's what pizza should taste like.
Honestly, there might be one or two
during the night when I'm like,
"That's good one."
And then the rest of the night.
You're a true artist man.
You're super critical of yourself.
No, no. I am very hard on myself.
-But the food is so good.
-Like, I make myself sick.
-Mind-blowing.
-Thanks.
Yo, in Italy, this is how we do it.
Fork and knife.
And apparently, here in San
Francisco as well.
This has been one of my favorite
pizza experiences without a doubt.
Anthony is a very humble guy,
but his knowledge of pizza
and the way that he goes about it
is just on a level that's so high.
He's very critical of himself
and the pizzas but,
the pizzas just come out
so pure and so good.
I'm just happy to
have this experience,
spend some time with him,
and actually get back there
and make a pizza with him.
I'm heading to Mozzeria
in the Mission.
A Napoli-style pizzeria opened by
husband and wife team,
Melody and Russ Stein.
This is one of the only
deaf owned and operated
restaurants in the country.
Melody and Russ are not only
making amazing pizza,
but also creating opportunities
for their staff, customers,
and the deaf community as a whole.
There's two things that I noticed
when I walked in the door.
Number one, was that beautiful
Stefano Ferrara oven.
The second thing that I noticed was
the Vera Pizzeria sign up there.
How long have you guys
been in the pizza business?
Amazing. Looking at your pizza,
it looks like Italian pizza to me.
Where were you born and raised
before you came to the States?
Wow! So your family
has a restaurant.
And you were also able to open your
dream restaurant here.
That's awesome. That's amazing.
So this is where the magic happens?
Yeah.
I bathe in it.
You got to have that
circular motion.
Thank you! You know I own
a pizzeria too, right?
No, I want to see your style.
I want to see your style.
Cheers!
You guys are real champions
for the Deaf community.
What does it mean to have a
restaurant like this
and be able to show the world what
you guys can do here as a pizzeria?
Right.
Absolutely. I'm always super
impressed by people who are
champions of their community.
And it seems that you guys really
took it to the extreme.
You really put your heart and soul
into making pizza.
But then, included your community
into it and empowered them.
And I just want to say I think
that's really great.
And I'm sure your community
thanks you for that.
I have one last stop in
San Francisco to make.
Tommaso's in North Beach,
one of the oldest pizzerias in SF.
Agostino, the owner,
was waiting for me out front.
Agostino. I"m Frank.
Nice to meet you.
A-G-O-S-T-I-N-O, okay?
I'm going to talk for five minutes.
I'm going to tell you the story of
the place from A to Z, okay?
3, 2, 1.
Welcome to Tommaso's Restaurant.
This restaurant is 84 years old.
One of the reasons that
this is a famous restaurant
is because of the brick oven.
The brick oven was built in 1935.
We use oak wood because it yields
very high heat and very low flames.
Around the restaurant,
there are paintings on the walls.
Those are on canvas.
They are the originals.
They are the scenes of Naples
copied from postcards of the family
brought from Naples in the '30's.
People Magazine in 1982, came out
with the best nine pizza places
in the United States and we came in
on number three.
Instead of stars, they gave us
tomatoes.
So we ended up with four tomatoes
out of five tomatoes.
And then another interesting
thing, we have a little booth
at the end of the restaurant.
It's got a sign that says,"Family
Table Reserved At All Times."
It's the best table in the house
because it's closest to the kitchen
and closest to the bathroom.
That's it.
Was it five minutes?!
I think so.
Thank you so much.
I can't wait to dig in.
I took it to go because
there wasn't much room.
I'm about to enjoy it on the street.
Got to do the spinach side first,
like Agostino said.
It wouldn't be a trip to the Bay
without a stop in wine country.
And what's better than pizza?
Pizza and wine.
We're in Napa right now.
I'm about to see my boy, Ketan.
He owned a beautiful
winery out here.
This is a wine that I make
from a different vineyard.
It's called Monasio.
He has a beautiful pizza oven built
into the side of the mountain.
We're just going to chill with some
friends, eat some pizza,
drink some good wine.
See what northern California
is all about.
This place is 45 acres.
And then, there's a
bottom piece that's about 15.
Right now we have this
super fence up because
we just have kind of finished
planting this vineyard.
We fenced the entire property in.
But, we're still making sure that all
the deers are really out
before we pull down
these temporary fences.
I come from a family of
farmers and herders.
And there's something special about
just being out in nature
taking care of your shit, you know?
That's what we're built upon.
We cleared all this land ourselves.
I have a heavy equipment company.
And we develop vineyards
for other people.
So I make wine off of
four other vineyards.
And then this is
my kind of home property.
This will start producing grapes in
the next two to three years.
-It's just a process.
-A process.
I'm looking for the best way to
possibly do something.
Because I'm looking for the best
this ground has to offer.
What is it about this community,
your group of friends,
the people that are here in Napa?
We don't have the
infrastructure to go out.
-Anything like what a city does.
-Yeah.
Just wine and food, and
all these things. If you love one,
you obviously love the other.
And that's how we all
get together.
-Nice to meet you.
-Hi, I'm Sara.
-Sara. Frank. Nice to meet you.
-Nice to meet you.
-Mel.
-Nice to meet you, Mel.
-How you doing? I'm Lee.
-Frank. Pleasure to meet you.
You're going to eat
some pizza, today?
Yeah, you are.
This whole oven is a whole
monstrosity in its own sense but.
It's crazy, this thing.
We wanted to something that wasn't
a Neapolitan dome.
-But it was more a Tuscan dome.
-Right.
-And so we excavated the earth out.
-Okay.
And then we basically built it brick
by brick, layer by layer up.
And it took ten days
to do all the layers.
So it's a little bit
different of a shape,
but it's completely of
our own design.
You can really feel
the heat though.
This thing is generating
a lot of heat.
Yeah, that's because it's in
the earth, so it's insulated.
Right. And for pizzas, I mean
I'm sure they come out great in here.
All the homies are here.
Everybody's chilling.
We got the fire burning.
I can feel it from here.
It's nice and hot.
Basically meal time.
We have some leeks.
Amazing buffalo mozzarella.
We have some tomatoes that
were simply crushed up.
Also some tomatoes
that we got at the market.
Some zucchini flowers,
some eggs. I don't know.
We're probably going to get
a little creative here, today.
What did you do
to make the dough?
Classic Neapolitan style.
Flour, water, yeast, salt.
We're looking at like 62
to like 65% water.
So it's a nice wet dough.
Here we go, wish me luck.
The pizza looks like it's kind of
rising and popping up in there quick,
which is a good sign.
It's pretty good for
on the side of a mountain, I think.
Hey man, you guys set
me up right, you know?
You can't go wrong with some really
good tomatoes, some really good dough,
and some really good
mozzarella cheese.
Cheers.
Thanks guys.
Cheers.
In San Francisco, you don't
need to do much.
The stuff that's coming
out of the ground.
The amount of work that these
farmers are putting into this stuff.
The agriculture scene, the wine.
The pizza's the canvas.
You know, you don't really
have to do much.
You stretch it out. You put some
good stuff on it. You throw it in.
And everyone's happy.
Got to wash it down
with a good can of wine too.
Salute to that.
I never would have really
imagined that my trip to Napa
and this beautiful vineyard
would end up with me giving
the winemaker a pizza tattoo.
- Diamond Mountain?
- Diamond Mountain.
Fucking drill it in.
This is my first time ever giving
somebody a tattoo.
You DM, baby!
You're definitely gonna regret this.
I better get a fucking
season three, alright?
Yes!
I think we might be brothers now.
Is that right?
-Is that a fact?
-I think it is.
Yo! This guy is like a, fucking
modern day Picasso.
Are you kidding me?
He went to art school.
