Chef Billy Manzo of Federal Hill Pizza

Posted on March 16, 2018 by pizzatherapy

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In this video, Billy Manzo master Pizza maker explains how he lovingly transformed a former vaudeville theater and movie house into an incredible World Class Pizzeria. Interestingly enough, this was the same movie house, Billy watched movies as a kid. And my mom, who grew up in the Federal Hill Neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island, watched movies there as well!

The theater was built in 1925 as an original vaudeville movie theater owned by MGM-Mayer. The building went from a vaudeville theater into a movie theater. The building space is 11,000 square feet. A major company purchased the property, hoping to turn the space into a dinner theater. They spent countless money to refurbish the property. Their efforts failed and the building stood empty for 15 years.

Billy and his wife Christine purchased the property and transformed the space into Federal Hill Brick Oven Pizza. The building itself has many memories for the residents of Providence. Billy feels he will never own the building, rather he is a custodian of the building. He tried very hard to keep the integrity of the building intact.

Billy exudes passion and commitment to his craft of making pizza. He is also committed to giving back to his community by sharing the joys of pizza. He is an extraordinary Chef with a lot of heart…

You can discover Federal Hill Pizza in Providence at 1039 Chalkstone Ave. and in Warren Rhode Island at 495 Main street. You can visit online at federal pizza online. Check them out on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Billy is also the founder of Chef’s Feeding Kids The following video, tells his story:[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”2829″ img_size=”medium” title=”Chefs Feeding Kids”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/16OybL27pw4″ title=”Billy Manzo on Federal Hill Pizza”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Federal Hill Pizza

Providence Restaurant

1039 Chalkstone Avenue
Providence, Rhode Island
401-331-3310

Warren Restaurant

495 Main Street
Warren, Rhode Island
401-245-0045[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_images_carousel images=”2827,2830,2829,2824,2831,2828,2192,2826,2825,2191,2190,2189,2188,2187″ img_size=”large” slides_per_view=”2″ autoplay=”yes” title=”Pictures of Federal Hill Pizza”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Artisan Bread Making with Peter Reinhart

Posted on February 24, 2017 by pizzatherapy

This post is a review of Peter Reinhart’s Class:Artisan Bread Making

Peter Reinhart is a master bread maker. He is a James Beard Award Winner and an educator. He is a faculty member at Johnson and Wales Culinary School. Peter travels the World demonstrating his mastery of breads and pizza. He has been featured at various events around the country. He has been featured at Google discussing bread. Check it out here: Peter Reinhart: “Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads” | Food at Google He has also been a presenter at Ted Talks. Here is Peter’s lecture.

Peter has come out with a course called Artisan Bread Making, which has changed the way I created bread as well as pizza. The techniques are easy and simple to master.

The course has changed the way I make bread as well as pizza. The simple step of using a small amount of olive oil when you knead you bread (and pizza) is nothing short of miraculous. A light bulb went off in my head when I discovered this simple yet effective bread technique..

Peter Reinhart eats pizza.

In this video course Peter takes you step by step into the bread making process. The first part of the course is an introduction to the course. Peter introduces himself and talks about some of the concepts involved in bread making. He starts by explaining the 12 steps of bread making. The first section is an introduction to Peter and his bread making philosophy. This is a great foundation for all that follows. .

Peter explains simply and completely how to create artisan bread. This goes for the professional as well as the home baker.. All his explanations are done in a simple step by step demonstration as well as a description of why you should do each step. He discusses baking tools that will help you master the art of bread making. He explains the critical importance of using a scale for bakers percent’s, and explains this is the most accurate method of getting consistency in your final product. The breads are amazing. Here is a video review of the class:

Check out Peter’s Course here: Artisan Bread Making

Joe Leroux, Canadian Pizza Maker of the Year Interview at Pizza Expo

Posted on October 14, 2016 by pizzatherapy

Pizza Maker of the Year Award for Joe Leroux

Joe Leroux was awarded Canadian Pizza Maker of the Yrear for 2016.

In the following interview, Joe discusses how he won the award and what it meant to him.
He entered the pizza competition with the Best Pizza Makers in Canada. There were 25 entries in all. The contestants had come for all over the whole country.
Joe knew he had made a great pizza. As far as he was concerned, he thought it would be good enough for 3rd place.
When the winner of 3rd place was announced he was a little disappoint but he thought, well maybe 2nd place.
When he did not win for 2nd place, he was a little disappointed and he decided to pack up all of his stuff and head home.

That’s when the winner was announced and he won First Place for the Best Canadian Pizza.

In the following Interview, Joe explains how he entered the contest which was sponsored by a Canadian Pizza Magazine.

He has been making pizza at his pizzeria, Amadio’s located in the Greater Toronto area since 1975. He explains there have been many ups and downs since then. But the one thing he will not sacrifice on is the quality of ingredients when he makes pizza.

He says that you must dedicate yourself to the craft of making pizza but he also says he needs to shut down every year for his own vacation. He understands the importance of taking care of yourself in the pizza business. He is works many hours a day to keep on top of his business.

The following interview was recorded at Pizza Expo.

Amadio’s Pizza
360 Revus Ave., Unit 6
Port Credit/Mississauga
905-891-5500
Website: http://amadiospizza.com/

If you are interested in Pizza Expo you can go to:
Pizza Expo

Deal of the Day: $1675
Huge 42cf 2dr Display Cooler: $1675
Brand New, Free Ship, 5YR Warranty!

Wood-Fired Pizza Ovens
6 Exciting New Models Just Arrived!
All-Stainless or Black: $1695-$7195

Tony Gemignani Pizza Making Skills at Pizza Expo

Posted on June 25, 2016 by pizzatherapy

Tony Gemignani and Laura Meyer at Pizza Demo

Here is a video excerpt of Tony Gemignani at an exclusive workshop at Pizza Expo.

Tony is doing this demonstration for an exclusive group of attendees at this private class. He shows why he is an 11 time World Pizza Champion. He explains dough stretching technique. He uses two different types of pepperoni. You can watch Tony’s hand as he stretches the dough.

Tony describes how to shape dough. As he stretches the pie, he holds up the dough to look through the light. He is looking for weak spots in the dough. He is making a New York style pizza during this demonstration. He puts sauce on the crust explaining he wants to leave about a 1/2 inch border around the pizza. As he puts together the pizza he explains he uses two different types of pepperoni. At Tony’s pizzeria an in house sausage is used.

Tony puts down the pepperoni and follows the sauce line making sure to cover the entire pie. One of the biggest errors is that first time pizza makers encounter is do not following their sauce line when placing pepperoni on the pizza. If you put all of your toppings in the middle, your pizza will actually appear smaller than it actually is. When he places the sausage on the pizza note that he pinches the sausage the size of a dime. “If you pinch your sausage the size of a quarter it will not cook well.”

Tony explains that if the pie is a little small on the table, you can stretch the dough out a bit. Doing this quickly does not give the sauce a chance to bleed through. A common Neapolitan method for shaping dough is to make them smaller and then gradually stretch them on the peel. Tony also demonstrates a Roman style pie.

Discover Tony’s pizzeria:

Tony’s Pizza Napoletana

Tony’s Pizza Napoletana
1570 Stockton St
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 835-9888

You can claim a copy of Tony’s Best Selling Book The Pizza Bible: The World’s Favorite Pizza Styles, from Neapolitan, Deep-Dish, Wood-Fired, Sicilian, Calzones and Focaccia to New York, New Haven, Detroit, and more

Pizza Dough Hydration Secrets Revealed at Pizza Expo

Posted on March 29, 2016 by pizzatherapy

Albert: Albert Grande here from pizzatherapy.com legends pizza.com/blog I have cornered my old friend Tim Huff master baker at General Mills, and I wanted you to talk a little bit about the hydration of flour and in particular Pizza Dough Hydration. That’s something that’s come up a lot in my video, I did a previous interview with you. Could you address that Tim?

General Mills

Tim Huff: You bet. When it comes hydration it’s the amount of water that goes into formulation and when we look at that we compare that to flour weight so it’s in Baker’s percent

In these days I see a significant influence from the artisan baking industry we’re used to higher hydration doughs and so a lot of the folks that are baking Neapolitan style pizzas these days I see ranges from 60 may be close to 70% hydration so that be 60 to 70 pounds of water to hundred pounds of flour.

If you’re talking kind of traditional New York style crust a lot of the folks I talked to they may be around 55% absorption but I think they’re leaving money on the table by not hydrating the high gluten flours to the extent they could be. Pushing up to 60% is certainly very doable.

In a lot of ways, I think it actually makes the crust bake out better. The more you hydrate a dough the softer that dough is. It actually expands quicker in the oven and bakes more efficiently. So a lot of the folks that have a soggy dough or say hey I have a gum line I can’t figure it out. I keep taking away water and keeps getting worse and that’s why it’s getting worse cause as her take water away it makes the dough stiffer, the dough doesn’t expand when it hits the oven.

If a dough has higher hydration, it’s a little bit looser it pops quicker on the deck when you put it in the oven actually bakes more efficiently so pushing the hydration on those is something I think a lot of pizza operators could do.

Albert: So I’ve also heard Tim that using a higher hydration will make your pizza crisper? Is that true?

Tim Huff: Exactly and that’s the reason that it is crisper because it is baking more efficiently and it seems counterintuitive if I add more moisture to something how could it be crisper? The reason it is, is because it’s opening up the cell structure of that dough as it hits the oven it expands quicker when you have that expansion you’re essentially developing more little air cells, the bubbles there. It’s easier to bake something that’s airier versus baking something that’s dense.

And so it bakes more efficiently therefore gives it a crisper crust

Albert: Okay great and what are some of the flours that you recommend from General Mills

Tim Huff: Sure sure I mean when I think of the quintessential New York style pizza I think of All Trumps. All Trumps is a 14% spring wheat high gluten flour that’s predominately used in the New York market.

Right now with the advent of a lot of the Neapolitan style pizza as we came out with a flour a couple years ago called Gold Medal Neapolitan it’s a 12% winter wheat protein. It’s actually what I call and they can flour we have no treatment on it so it’s no bleach, no brominated but it also has no malted barley flour.

With some of these high heat applications what they’re wanting is a something that reduces a little bit of that browning because the oven does such a great job with the browning so we took away the malt so that you don’t get those additional residual sugars in there. So those two are some of the big ones right now.

For the rest of the Tim Huff interview, watch the video below or you may listen to the MP3 below video.

You can contact Tim at: tim.huff@genmills.com

You can listen to the MP3 of this interview or download of below:

[display_podcast]

Find out more about Pizza Expo at this link.

You can find All Trumps here:

General Mills Gold Medal All Trumps High Gluten Flour, 50 Pound

Scott Anthony on Punxsy Pizza, Tony Gemignani and Pizza as Social Change

Posted on October 17, 2015 by pizzatherapy

Scott Anthony talks about his pizza, and how he uses his pizzeria Punxsy Pizza as a vehicle for social change.

Scott Anthony is a Pizza Consultant as well as a pizzeria owner. He has been in the pizza business over twenty years. For many of those years he ran a very successful pizza franchise. He took the franchise to one of the top selling pizzerias in the chain.

Scott decided he wanted to take his pizza making to the next logical step and that was to open his own independent local pizza shop in his home town. He dropped the franchise and created his own local pizzeria called: Punxsy Pizza.

What sets his pizzeria apart is what Scott has done for the local community. He has created a fund raiser for the local fire department known as Punxsy Pizza and Prevention. Scott gets the fire Department involved in making pizza and delivering pizza. This fund raiser is wildly successful for the Local Volunteer Fire Department as most of their funds come through donations. According to the local paper more than $40,000 in donations was raised in a single day. Every dollar went to support the local fire department.

Donations from Punxsy Pizza!

Scott is at the forefront of using pizza for social change. He is a role model for other pizzeria operators regarding the power of pizza. Scott understands using pizza for Social Good.

Punxsy Pizza and Prevention

Scott has had Tony Gemignani come to Punxsutawney, PA to promote pizza. Tony is the author of The Pizza Bible and did an entire event there. In addition Tony G. was almost attacked by Punxsutawney Phil. Scott cites one of his highlights in his career was being named to the World Pizza Champions Team.

Scott Anthony and Tony Gemignani

The following interview with Scott was done at Pizza Expo. One of my favorite quotes from Scott is :”What’s good for Punxsatawney, is good for me”. Scott is the conscience of pizza! Thank you Scott for all that you do!

Punxsy Pizza
115 N Findley St, Punxsutawney, PA 15767
(814) 938-8132

Scott’s Book primarily for pizza professionals:
Profits in the Pie: Effective Marketing Tactics to Seize YOUR Slice of the $38.1 Billion Pizza Pie

Tony Gemignani’s Book:

The Pizza Bible: The World’s Favorite Pizza Styles, from Neapolitan, Deep-Dish, Wood-Fired, Sicilian, Calzones and Focaccia to New York, New Haven, Detroit, and more

2014: The Daily Meal 101 Best Pizza in America

Posted on January 11, 2015 by pizzatherapy

Daily Meal 101 Best Pizzas in the USA

With permission from our friends at The Daily Meal, we are pleased to present their list of the Best Pizza in america for 2014.

We were so excited about this list, we created a video about it. The list is from #50 to #1.

Watch the video and please comment. The entire list is below:

You can see the list here, here at the Daily Meal.

#50 Zuppardi’s, New Haven, Conn. (Special: Mozzarella, Mushroom, Sausage, Marinara)

#51 Santillo’s Brick Oven Pizza, Elizabeth, N.J. (Sicilian: Pepperoni, Mozzarella, Pizza Sauce)

#50 Pizzaiolo, Oakland, Calif. (Margherita)

#49 Franny’s, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Clam Pizza)

#48 The Cheese Board, Berkeley, Calif. (Changes Daily)

#47 2Amys, Washington, D.C. (2Amys: Tomato Sauce and Mozzarella)

#46 Don Antonio by Starita, Atlanta, Ga. (Montanara Stari ta: Lightly-Fried Dough, Starita Tomato Sauce, Smoked Buffalo Mozzarella)

#45 Antico Pizza Napoletana, Atlanta, Ga. (Pepperoni)

#44 Prince Street Pizza, New York City (Prince Perfection: “Our Signature Square”: Fresh Mozzarella and “Our Secret Sauce”)

#43 Spacca Napoli, Chicago (Diavola: Blended San Marzano Tomatoes, Mozzarella di Bufala, Spicy Salami, Basil, Calabrian Chili Powder, Extra Virgin Olive Oil)

#42 Nellcôte, Chicago Ill. (Sunnyside-Up Organic Egg: D.O.P. Fontina)

#41 Juliana’s Pizza, Brooklyn N.Y. (Margherita)

#40 Little Vincent’s, Huntington, N.Y. (Cheese)

#39 Pequod’s, Chicago Ill. (Deep Dish with Sausage and Pepperoni)

#38 Best Pizza, Brooklyn, N.Y. (White Pizza)

#37 Star Tavern Pizzeria, Orange, N.J. (Thin Crust)

#36 Colony Pizza, Stamford, Conn. (Sausage Pie)

#35 Pizzeria Delfina, San Francisco (Salsiccia Pizza)

#34 Lombardi’s, New York City (Pepperoni)

#33 Patsy’s, East Harlem, N.Y. (Cheese)

#32 Joe & Pat’s Pizzeria, Staten Island, N.Y. (Vodka)

#31 De Lorenzo’s Tomato Pies, Robbinsville, N.J. (Tomato Pie)

#30 Al Forno, Providence, R.I. (Margarita)

#29 Regina Pizzeria, Boston (Melanzane)

#28 Grimaldi’s, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Margherita)

#27 John’s of Bleecker, New York City (Bruschetta)

#26 Louie and Ernie’s, Bronx, N.Y. (Sausage Pie)

#25 Varasano’s, Atlanta, Ga. (Nana: San Marzano Tomatoes, Mozzarella, Herbs and Spices)

#24 Bru Room at Bar, New Haven, Conn. (Mashed Potato and Bacon)

#23 Nick’s Pizza, Forest Hills, Queens, N.Y. (Mushroom and Sausage)

#22 Kesté, New York City (Kesté)

#21 Gjelina, Los Angeles (Lamb Sausage)

#20 Co., New York City (Popeye)

#19 Apizza Scholls, Portland, Ore. (Apizza Amore)

#18 Lucali, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Pepperoni)

#17 New Park Pizza, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. (Cheese, “Well-Done”)

#16 Rubirosa Ristorante, New York City (Vodka: Vodka Sauce and Mozzarella)

#15 Santarpio’s, Boston, Mass. (Mozzarella, Sausage, and Garlic)

#14 Motorino, New York City (Brussels Sprouts)

#13 Joe’s, New York City (Cheese)

#12 Modern Apizza, New Haven, Conn. (Italian Bomb)

#11 Una Pizza Napoletana, San Francisco (Margherita)

#10 Tony’s Pizza Napoletana, San Francisco (Margherita)

#9 Paulie Gee’s, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Regina)

#8 Totonno’s, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Margherita)

#7 Flour + Water, San Francisco, Calif. Margherita)

#6 Pizzeria Mozza, Los Angeles Calif. (Squash blossoms, Tomato, Burrata Mozzarella, Tomato Sauce)

#5 Sally’s Apizza, New Haven Conn. (Tomato Pie: Tomato Sauce, No Cheese)

#4 Roberta’s, Brooklyn N.Y. (Margherita)

#3 Pizzeria Bianco, Phoenix, AZ (Margherita: Tomato Sauce, Fresh Mozzarella, Basil)

#2 Di Fara, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Classic Round Pie: Mozzarella, Parmesan, Plum Tomato Sauce, Basil, Olive Oil, Sausage, Peppers, Mushroom, Onion)

#1 Frank Pepe, New Haven, Conn. (White Clam: Clams, Grated Parmesan, Olive Oil, Garlic, Oregano)

Pepe’s Clam Pie

The Pizza Therapy Pizza Book

Product Review

Albert Grande Of Pizzatherapy.com Shows You To Make Pizza

Claim your copy below:

The Pizza Therapy Pizza Book: Unlock the Secret of Making Pizza

Correct Way to Eat A Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

Posted on September 18, 2014 by pizzatherapy

Just to let you know….there is a correct way to eat a deep dish Chicago Pizza.

Kyle Olsen writes:

Many claim to know how to eat the scrumptious round dish of love we
call a Chicago deep dish pizza. The problem is; they often fail to
realize the proper Windy City etiquette and technique.

This is where Lou Malnati’s and
TastesofChicago.com come in. We’ve
worked together to develop a video that will once and for all show
everyone how to properly each a deep dish pizza like a true
Chicagoan.

How to Eat Pizza like a Chicagoan

Legends of Pizza Blog

Making Pizza from the heart…

Category Archives: Pizza videos