Here's a photo of me and Chris Bianco at the original Phoenix location in 2012:
This post is an excerpt from my 2023 book The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation.
Chris Bianco is a James Beard award-winning chef and owner of Pizzeria Bianco, whose wood-oven pizzas are often named the nation’s best. After enjoying his Phoenix restaurant for years, my wife and I moved to Dallas in 2005, where we couldn’t find a similar pizzeria. I was inspired to start making pizza in our backyard. We even toyed with the idea of building a brick oven like Bianco’s.
Before committing to the investment, it seemed prudent to start cooking pizzas on an inexpensive stone I could put on my gas grill. That doesn’t work as well as a wood oven, but it allowed us to test a few assumptions, such as being able to make and stretch dough properly and not getting bored with making (or eating) pizza. After that small test of change, we went all-in on the pizza oven, and I haven’t regretted it.
After using the backyard wood oven a few times, I had an opportunity to return to Pizzeria Bianco, where I asked Chris for his advice as a new pizza maker. I’ll never forget his answer, in his raspy Brooklyn accent:
“Just keep burnin’ ’em, ’til you get it right!”
As Chris reminded me, we should expect to make mistakes when we’re learning or trying something new. We should also remember that mistakes are possible anytime we try to improve a product or our process. But we can learn from those mistakes and move forward, better.
2 comments:
Do you have a wood recommendation? My son is receiving an Ooni pizza oven for his birthday and I want to make sure he’s well-equipped with what he needs. Thanks!
Hi - That's exciting. I've only used a propane-fired Ooni. I'd see what their website recommends about the ovens that can run on wood.
In my oven, I use either Oak or Post Oak wood. You're looking for something that burns hot, as opposed to imparting smoke flavor the way BBQ woods would do.
You also want to use wood that's fully dried, unlike firewood bundles that are usually a mix of dried and undried.
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