Pinsa Rossa in SF is a top tier Pinseria

Pinsa Rossa in SF is excellent. Their Pinsa's are perfectly baked with the right amount of hydration, perfect fermentation, and a process that seems to put craft over looks. The result is a light weight, digestable Pinsa that stays true to the Pinsa romana legacy. 10/10 would recommend.

P.S. Love how their Burrata came "injected" with Olive Oil. Fun touch.

Gas powered ovens are criminally underrated

Baked Pizza in a gas powered oven after 1.5 years yesterday and was blown away by the jump in quality from the Ooni Volt (the industry leader in electric ovens); the amount of moisture loss in an electric oven is insane. I've been putting peaches on the Pizza recently, and I put them yesterday too. Except the difference was day and night, because the oven was partially open, the pizza went in and came out in like 90 seconds, the Pizza was quality was so much better! The peaches actually tasted fresh, they felt they were part of the Pizza rather than something completely dried out. The same was true for every other topping in yesterday's pizzas.

We often mention about the heat in a gas powered oven, but it's also the fact that it doesn't significantly reduce moisture content that makes the Pizzas so much better.

The Illusion of a good Pizza

Went to Doppio Zero, one of SF's only few AVPN certified Pizzerias, basically one of the few Pizzerias in SF that can claim that their Pizzas match the Italian standardization body's strict requirements for what's a True Neapolitan Pizza. I have my doubts on that.


This Pizza looks great. It looks like a true Neapolitan Pizza. The Cheese and the preparations are on point, the pizza tastes great too, the sauce is balanced (just crushed tomatoes) and flavours on point. But it's a heavy pizza, in fact too heavy for what a 12" Neapolitan Pizza should be. The after-taste is not great at all. It's not easily digestable, the crust is too doughy and not fun to eat.


Look at the gluten net, it's too dense! This isn't a great pizza at all!

How do I know this? I made a very similar mistake about a week back. The Pizza looks great. But does the Pizza have the right impact on our stomachs, maybe not.

To be fair, this is nitpicking and I am a bit of a Pizza purist here. This is a practice popular across SF, and Doppio Zero is one of the better ones. But I believe a good traditional neapolitan pizza is the one that's easy to digest, not the one that looks the part.

Learning something new every day

This Pizza looks great, but the intensity of the leopard spotting and the smallish size indicate two things that went wrong today. I was working with some leftover dough, and took it out of the refrigerator at around 11AM. Re-balled it, and let it rest for another ~3 hours so it got back to room temperature.

At 2, even if the dough had gone back to room temperature, the gluten was far from reformed. So when i set out to stretch the dough, it didn't stretch as far, and the dough ball, even though it felt at room temperature, was still a bit cold which resulted in a very intense leopard spotting, not ideal for a Neapolitan Pizza.

That's learnings for the next session! :)

A glimpse into how I prep for Pizza

Here's a glimpse of how I prep for Pizza. Dough Proportions are tough, especially the yeast. This thing helps me make accurate measurements so I can prep my dough. Not the prettiest app that I've made and I want to make a ton of changes to it before ever shipping it, but for now it just works for me.

A good way to re-heat New York Style Pizza

I usually try to have fresh-Neapolitan Style Pizza (which should technically be un-reheatable) but I ended up with some extras of a New York Style Pizza today, which is thicker and easier to re-heat. But what's the correct way? If you just microwave it, it loses all its moisture and becomes rubbery which no one would like. Same for an oven as well.

I figured I'll ask ChatGPT for this, and I actually got a really good suggestion i.e.

1. Put the slice on a pan, or skillet and heat it for 2-4 minutes, until the crust gets "crisp". 
2. Add a couple of teaspoons of water, to the side of the Pizza (not on top) and cover it with a lid.
3. Heat until the chease begins to melt a little. 

Very interesting idea, which IMHO works because it infuses the pizza with the hydration it would otherwise loose from the re-heating process. That's actually a pretty smart idea. Not sure who came up with it (because obviously, GPT is trained on something!), but it's ingenious.

What makes a great Pizza?

Years ago, I was at a Pizzaiolo training at the AVPN (Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, the standardization body that protects the Neapolitan Pizza's authenticity) and the chef / my instructor for the day, answered a question on what defines a good pizza. If you see the AVPN rules for a Neapolitan Pizza, you'd think it'd have something to do with water content or the region from which the tomatoes come from, or the flour. But the chef's answer was extremely simple.

He said, that the best Pizza was one that was easy to digest (you shouldn't feel bloated after eating it, you shouldn't have to rely on a fizzy drink i.e. when it leaves a dry aftertaste) and that used simple but fresh ingredients; in other words a pizza that wasn't hiding its poor quality produce under multiple ingredients. Ofcourse, to make an easy to digest pizza you need a well fermented dough, you need it to have a minimum amount of hydration (65% by bakers fractions is usually the suggested hydration) and shouldn't over / under bake your pizza. To get fresh ingredients, well, you get fresh ingredients.

As simple as it sounds, the process is extremely challenging and one that is hard to perfect. By the said metric, I've had a good pizza in very few places, in fact some of the famous Pizzerias in Naples, fall flat in digestibility. My favourite places are 50 Kaló (Both the Naples, and London locations ), La Notizia 94 and Gino e toto Sorbillo (Naples).


50 Kaló: I admire their craft and hospitality. Their Marinara and Marinara Reinforzata are exceptional, the tomatoes are fresh and the flavours simple. This is the quintessential Neapolitan Pizza. Perfect representation of the flavours; and they scale very well! I had the opportunity to visit both their Naples and London outlets and both of them had no compromise on the taste!

La Notizia 94: When you bite into this Pizza you don't even realise it's vegan, it's so soft, and so full of flavour that you never realise that there's no cheese in it. The dough is perfectly fermented, the pizza is perfectly baked with the right amount of leopard spotting and the flavors are perfectly balanced.

Gino e Toto Sorbillo (via Del Tribunali, Naples): It's the classic ~100 year old pizzeria. Big lines, big brand name (and yes, the taste varies between outlets, their pizzeria in Milan was less than ideal); but the Pizza I had at their original location in Naples was fantastic. Another vegan pizza, and another Pizza where the quality of the dough and the freshness of the tomatoes was so impeccable, I barely thought about anything else.

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P.S. Fun Fact: The plural of Pizza is Pizze.

Pizza Day!

Ever since moving to Berkeley, there have been fewer and fewer occasions where I made Pizza for only the two of us: Me and my Brother. So I took the 4th of July holiday as an opportunity to do that, so both of us could have some us time.

Pizzas didn't turn out to be that great though, I have a love-hate relationship with my Ooni Volt (their Electric Oven) it's convenient but the temperature control is so finnicky. It's either not hot enough or too hot. Destroyed one Pizza because the oven was too hot and it stuck to the peel while turning it midway.

But I did make two good ones, the Margherita (not photographed here) and the P3 Pizza i.e. Peppers, Pistachio and Peaches.

Love this shot of me sprinkling extra pistachio on to the Pizza.


More Pizza Shots! :)


I got this Oliera from my previous trip to Naples. It's a traditional handcrafted Copper and Brass oil cruet. I enjoy using it a lot, but more on that later.