L'industrie Pizza (NYC) From the Archives

Hi everyone, a note about this week's show. The big news earlier this week was the 50 top pizza organization dropping its top 100 pizzas in the world list, and while I'm not really a fan of rankings or lists or ratings, they are so subjective, I wanted to point out a couple of things. First, congrats to friend of the pod Tony Gemini for coming in at number six worldwide. Daniela Cassone in Tokyo, coming in at number three, and Chicago's own Robert Garvey, coming in at a solid number 50, also William over at Pizzeria Say in Los Angeles with the impressive 33. And then Massimo LaVillia's industry, notched a placement at number 80. And I do think it should be higher than that, another reason not a fan of lists, but regardless, I purposely wanted to revisit this gem from our archives, because since we aired this original episode in late February of 2020, less than a month before the world shut down, Massimo has since opened a second location in Manhattan, down on the West Village. You can now find his famous Burata Pie for $37, or for $10 more, a Burata and a Pursuito Di Parmopie. Man, welcome to New York City Prices. So we're jumping into the time machine, if you will, going back four years now, to a younger Massimo on the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Enjoy. And at that point, I really didn't understand about quality of the product, you know, of tomato and of flour. So yeah, it was, it was a shitty show, basically, yeah, for the first month. What do you do if you're from Italy? You've grown up eating great pizza, but your American dream of owning your own place goes south from the get-go? Massimo LaVillia learned pretty quickly, if he was going to survive in the competitive pizza world of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, he needed help. The story of how an immigrant with a dream turned into one of the city's best pizza yolos at land history straight ahead. I need a deepest sausage and a thin pepperoni for here. This is Pizza City, the podcast dedicated to the art, craft and passion behind some of the world's greatest pizzas. I'm Steve Galinsky, author of Pizza City USA, and founder of Pizza City USA Tours in Chicago. And welcome to the show, everybody. This week, great to have you along with us. We've got a great story today, really made an America story, for sure. Massimo LaVillia, proud son of Tuscany, came to America not to long ago, about seven, eight years ago, worked in restaurants in New York, and just like a lot of people wanted to have his own place, decided it was going to be pizza, even though he really had very little pizza experience. And how many times have you seen this? Someone who just loves pizza thinks it's, you know, fairly straightforward and finds a little 290 square foot space, I mean, pretty typical for this part of Williamsburg. And inherits another place called Lé industry, that's L apostrophe industry, was from a French gentleman, and trying to make it his own, and reinvented a little bit, used whatever he had there to begin with, the ovens, he sort of inherited everything, and started making pizza, and honestly realized this is not a very good pizza, very self-deprecating to this point. Of course, now you can look back and kind of laugh at it, because Lé industry really offering one of the best pizzas in New York, pretty widely agreed upon that this is a must-visit pizza ria in New York City, not just the fresh burata, not just the Parmesan or Regiano and the fresh basil and olive oil that go on and all the slices, but really his attention to detail. And in fact, he's doing great wedges and squares. So it was on a recent trip to New York, eating quite a bit of pizza, and Massimo was kind enough to take some time out of the afternoon, it was right around the time kids getting out of school, so they were coming in and out of the store while he chatted with me in his very small front room with maybe eight stools. And we talked about, as we begin all conversations, his early pizza memories. Massimo, I think for taking some time, I know you're busy here, you got a small shop and you're taking some time to talk to me. I ask everybody this the first question usually, what's your first pizza memory? My first pizza memory? I think when I was in Italy, probably by five, when I was five, six years old, what part of Italy? Toscani. I'm from my town, it's Pistoia, it's thirty minutes from Florence, it's a small town. And so we've heard in America about Roman style, Roman Altaglia, we've heard about Neapolitan from Napoli, what is the style of pizza from where you came from? The style of pizza from where I'm from is more like a cracker, we do like ten inch pie and very similar to the Roman style, but the round pie, like Martina was doing before in the city. Exactly, very similar. So tell me how you got to New York. Okay, so I moved here in 2014, I came my first time in 2013, vacation for like two weeks, it was my dream, so I moved back, I figured out everything and I lived my country and I came here my first day, I was playing soccer and then I started to work in a restaurant. Were you doing any kind of pizza work when you were in Italy besides eating? Never, never. I did a lot of eat but never make pizza or never work in a restaurant, never. Do you remember like the first time you ate pizzas in New York City? I think my first slice of pizza was on Carmine, on Graham Avenue, and just get a New York slice away. I just get a New York slice, yeah. I didn't really understand about like the New York style pizza, you know, I guess, and I get into pizza later when I start to work in a restaurant in the city, I was a server and I really became a passionate about pizza and I was reading a lot. And then I find this spot on cell in Williamsburg and then, you know, when my life changed. Were you looking actively for a pizza area, for a location? Not really, I was doing really good at the restaurant as a server, it just was the time to do something, I feel that I need to do something in my life, some change, so I find this spot here and I jump in on, even without any experience and, you know, it wasn't easy, it wasn't easy. A lot of people would want to make the kind of pizza that they're familiar with, that they know from childhood, like, you know, Polly G, when he was practicing in his backyard with a wood burning oven, that's what he opened up in his restaurant and then he opened up a slice shop because that's the pizza he remembered eating as a kid. I wouldn't surprise you didn't want to make the pizza you grew up eating because that's what you knew in Tuscany, you wanted to make something different. Absolutely. Yeah. To be honest, the pizza that I grew up in Tuscany is not really that great, it's not my favorite. No one from Italy has ever admitted that, by the way. No, no, no, it's not, it's not absolutely not my favorite, you know, I mean, I feel that I have to go to Rome if I want to find the best pizza place for me, yeah, no, you're absolutely right. I mean, I spent a lot of time training and practicing the first months in the pizzeria, I did a lot of mistakes, the pizza wasn't that good. So what kinds of things are you making mistakes on? Mostly about though, about fermentation and everything, I really didn't know how to mix. I mean, before this part, it was owned by a French guy, that's why the name is L'Industria. So I saw something in, like, the last week that he was working, but obviously, like, the first week, when I started to work, it was just a mess. So this was a pizza place called the industry, but it was not doing a different style. Kind of similar, but yeah, different. It was different. And when you said you're making these mistakes, how did you correct them? Did you ask other people in the industry for help? Did you look online for help or consult books? I look online, I read a lot of books, I asked a couple of my friends in Rome, and they helped me a little bit. And I used to have a small aubert, so the first things that I did, I changed the aubert and I bought a spiral mixer, and at that point, I feel is when I improved my dough a lot. You went from a whole bar to a spiral mixer? Yeah, after a couple of months, I changed it, and at that point, I think that I really improved a lot the dough. And I mean, we still change it though every day, almost. We always change the recipe, and we try new different flour. And so you took over, and this is about three years old now, coming up on March. When you started, did you say, okay, we're going to make a completely different style of pizza, we're going to make the style that I want to make? Not really. When I started in 2017, I think it was March. Yes. I mean, first of all, it was broke, because I spent all my money to get the spot. So this is not a big spot, by the way, how big is this space? 290 square feet, 295, yeah, we don't have a basement, nothing. I mean, the counter before it wasn't the back, so we used to have four tables, and we can see 10 people, but now we have to move close to the window. I mean, we're sitting in a space here with three, six, seven stools. Yeah. I don't know. So, yeah, nothing. I took over this spot, and I tried to make the same pizza that he was doing, this guy, the French guy, and obviously, and it wasn't great. I did a lot of mistakes, I wasn't putting another water in the door, so the door was really tough. I remember the first week, and I was like, oh my God, I can't stretch this door. I don't know how to do it. And did you feel bad charging people for this pizza? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And at that point, I really didn't understand about the quality of the product, of tomato and of flour, so, yeah, it was a shitty show, basically, yeah, for the first month. So, how long did it take you before you really felt like you got your style? Five, six months, maybe, it took me a little bit to be more comfortable. I mean, I remember that I got sleeping on the pizza room for three, four times, I think, because I was, you know, I was almost crying at night time, because the people wasn't happy. I had a lot of complaints in the first months, you know. Because the customers, I'm guessing, are spoiled, and they expect a great slice, right? Yeah, of course, they expect a great slice, but also was, I was very slow, because I never made pizza. So, a lot of people that were complaining about timing, like, in a Saturday night, that would probably make, like, 20-35, which is nothing, you know. And, yeah. Are we only doing the rounds with the wedges or squares? I know. I was only doing the round. And I was by myself, so it was really hard to do everything. I was cleaning the table, making pizza, pick up the phone, taking the delivery. So, it was really hard. Thinking you were crazy to leave the restaurant, you should have just stayed in that job? Yeah, the first month I was about, I can't do it, but, you know, it was my dream, so I had to do it. Like, there is no choice at that point. I become more much in love with pizza, and I understand more the fermentation, so at that point, everything, it changed it up, you know. And if you start eating, like, while this was going on, were you going around New York eating in some of the better pizza places to get an idea of what was tasty? Yeah. I think one of my first lies, it was a scar. Scar is on a low-reside. Yeah. So, at that point, we become friend with the scar, and I understand better. You help me a little bit to understand better the quality of the ingredients, in general. It's so interesting how there is this sort of pizza fraternity of mostly guys who help one another here. Yeah, no. It's beautiful. With Scar, he helped me a lot. He showed up here one day, you know, and introducing stuff, and he liked the pizza. When I wasn't happy, you know, he helped me to understand, like, quality of the ingredients, because this is the point. In the beginning, I was making pizza, but I was thinking only about money, right, because I have to make the money, and they were to pay the rent, and everything. Now is more about the quality for me. I want to make good pizza, great pizza, even if I make less money, but, you know, I feel the one day people they understand, you know, I really care about the quality. All right. We're going to take a break from talking with Massimo. We're going to come back in a little bit, and hear more about his process, and specifically, how he makes these incredibly delicious pizzas, and then we're going to preview some scenes from our next show coming up in two weeks, so stay with us. Welcome back to the show. I'm with Massimo here at Lindustry in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and we were talking in the last segment about how, when you first opened about three years ago, you were focused on making money because you were basically broke from putting this 290 square foot place together, and you realized that maybe you should focus on the quality. So you talked to Scar, you read books, you consulted, you switched your mixer, take me through the process without giving up all your trade secrets of, like, let's do the round pie first. Flowers? Okay, so at that point, I used to use an Italian flower, double zero. Not that it was bad, but I think, obviously, if I have to think right now, it wasn't the best. Because double zero is typically for a Neapolitan and a higher heat oven. Yes, correct. So yeah, I was using this double zero, and the pizza, if I have to, I mean, it wasn't that great. It was super crispy, people love it, but it's nothing compared to the one of today, I think. It was a switch you made. Right now, we use a different flower. We blend flower from upstate and other ones is Italian. I mean, we use a different olive oil in the dough, we use a different tomato, everything in a lot of water. A lot of water. Yeah, our regular for the round pie goes around 65% to 70%, it really depends of the day. We have problem making dough here because we have the mixer by the oven, so it's really hot. And every day, it can change a lot. Calculate. I know Dan, Richard at Raza in Jersey City, calculates the temperature that the mixer generates as a part of the recipe. Absolutely. I do the same, but right now I go by feeling the friction factor, it's called friction factor. Yes. Today, I go by feeling like today, it's a little humid, so I have to pull like 6, 700 grams of ice in the water to make sure that when we finish the dough, we have a certain temperature, yeah. So overnight fermentation? No, we book ferment for like 3-4 hours, cut it, shape it, and then it goes in the fridge for 48 hours. So we let it ferment for two days. That's a big difference. A two-day cold ferment makes a huge difference. Yeah, two-day cold ferment. Before, we used to do three days, but you know, the space is very small, so we're not able to do it. I had to change something and now we do two days. And then in terms of topping, sauce, tomato sauce, any particular? Um, I mean, we used the Napoli from California, I think is the best. Cheese? Cheese, we use grandeur. Everybody uses grandeur, it sounds like. Yeah, I feel it's the, for this kind of style is the best. For me, I'm, it's my favorite. I don't want to say it's the best because other people, they use other cheese, but shreds, though. Yeah, we shred it here. We do 50% whole milk and 50% parsqu間, and then any, 75% whole milk, sorry, and then any seasonings before or post bake, seasony, what do you mean, like a regular basil? I mean, we finish all the pie with the extra virgin olive oil and parmesan and basil, all the pie, all this lice, doesn't matter, and you're baking, what kind of oven is that? It's in Italy, it's not a great, it's a small electric oven, but we don't have enough power in the store to add another oven, so you had your druthers, what type of oven would you like to have? Mority. I would choose more. Electric oven, yeah. Electric oven. Yeah. You need a stone deck, though. Yes. Yeah. It's easy for us. We can control the temperature of the bottom and the top, so it's also good if we, when we do the Roman style, it's good to cook, but this one we'll be getting a lot of problem because it doesn't have enough power, you know. Yeah. Is this small oven? What temperature you're baking at, like, 600? 300 Celsius, so I guess it's 645 at night. Yeah, that's all right. Okay, so you mentioned the Roman, the squares you're doing. Now, looking at them, I would say, oh, it's sort of a Sicilian meat's grandma, but the Roman, because of the crumb, the height of this, and it looks quite heavy, as I said to you earlier, and I quoted John Arena, you know, it kind of looks like a brick, it's like a feather, it's so light. Take me through this Roman pizza you're doing. Okay, this Roman pizza we start, I think, pratic in 2018, in May, if you feel like you had to do a different style because so many places are doing squares now? Not really, not really, it was about me, I really wanted to learn this style, so I called one of my friend for Rome, and he came here for the week, and he showed me, like, a little bit of the process, how to make the Roman style. Different flowers, different fermentation, everything. Different flowers, different fermentation, and yeah, it was like more, you know, in Rome, they're very different. Here, you have to make pizza in a different way, more like Sicilian, let's say, the American people they love pizza more sausage, more cheese, you know, they want to have more toppings. People here, they're hungry, they're not like in Italy, you know, they have a beautiful life, they want to go high, here they need to eat. The prations of the dough, yes, is the same, but we do a lot of different things. Longer ferment than your rounds? No, it's 24 hour ferment. We do a pre-ferment, bigger, than we keep a room temp for about 24 hour. We try to control the tempers around that, so usually right now, like, we do between the fridge and outside, but that pre-ferment has to be the difference because you got so much crumb in this pizza. We do a pre-ferment with the 45% of water, yeah, at 1% of east, we use fresh yeast for that. In the rom pie, we use our starter, and then do you top it and bake it, or do you bake it and par-bake it and then top it? We bake it only with tomato, so it's par-bake, yeah. I have to come in the morning to do that, because we need to set up the oven with a different tempers. And what are you baking it at, like, the Celsius wise, or the Fahrenheit? It's still the same, 295, 300, but the butter is more, because we use the blue pan. I use a blue pan, right? So the butter is supposed to be 310 Celsius, and the top is around 270, 375. And you get really creative with the toppings like Bonshi would be, like these octopus and seafood and burata and potatoes and on and on. Not really. We don't do that. We go easy here. We just go burata or pepperoni or anything we feel during the day. Just ate, was it burata and sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil? That was sun-dried tomato, yeah. Delicious. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. It was really good. And how long do these bake for? The feets are well. In the morning you take, like, 8 to 10 minutes, but you're reheating them to order, yeah? Yes. Yes, everything to order, yeah. And does that affect your pies adversely at all? Actually, it's actually better because there is a lot of water in this door. So in order to soak off the water, you have to reheat here a little. It's more crispy. I like better when we reheat the pie than when in the morning come out from the oven, you know? Because in the mornings, it's still a little wet, and I feel that we have to reheat. I mean, that's what they do in Rome. It keeps the crispy, too, when you do that. That's a crispy, yes. It keeps it. So now you're almost three years in here. Are you feeling relaxed a little bit more comfortable with the style of pizza you're producing? Absolutely not. I mean, we always try to improve our dough. I'm still not happy. I mean, sometimes we have the beautiful pie coming out, but you know, it's hard to keep the quality and control everything. That's the most difficult part about making pizza because there is so many, every day is different. You know? Temperature. Temperature. Temperature, everything is different every day. You have a lot of power when you get the flower, it's not the same all the time. So it's really hard to make good pizza every day. I can tell you that the quality is good, we use great stuff, yes, but you have to make a great pie, you know, every day. Are you at the point where you feel comfortable if you're not here and someone else is making the pizza now? Not really, not really. I think we have a pretty good team. You've added to your menu, I just had meatballs, so you got more than just pizza. Yeah, that one in it's Nick. You know, it's my guy. It's all Nick. He wanted to do meatballs. So that one is his job. It's not my job. All right. Last question, we ask everybody who's on the show here, knowing what you know now and you know a lot about pizza, obviously, because you've been in the trenches. What would you tell yourself three and a half, four years ago, before you opened up the industry, before you took over the keys to this business? What would you tell yourself? Go back to me, if I really enjoy the life. No, I'm just, get out of here, go home, don't do it, don't sign the lease. And I got the key out of me, oh my god, now I'm gonna make money two, three years and I go back to Italy. No, seriously. It's like a drug, you know, you become obsessed about the pizza. I don't know why, but you know, I only think about most of the time about pizza, you know. I never had like a day off. I love to make pizza. I'm not a guy who's like, you know, I go out and I just love to stay on top of the bench over there making pizza all the time. So maybe you would have told yourself, you would have told your younger self, be prepared to fall in love and be here all the time and not feel like it's work. For me right now, I mean, obviously it's work because it's a lot of hour, like today I came here at 8 o'clock and I'm gonna finish probably 11, 30 to 12 o'clock, so it's, it's long day, you know. But if you like it, the day goes fast. So and I'm happy that people love my pizza and that's it, yeah, pretty much. Really is, I meant to say this because I'm here with you, but it really is a remarkable pizza. It's delicious. Worthy of all the praise you've been getting and congratulations and all that. So Massimo, thank you so much for your time and continue success. I look forward to the larger version of this because now you're going to expand at some point, right? I hope. I mean, we've been talking about with Nick to see if we can find the space, make better pizza because that's the point, you know, I want to expand, but I want to make better pizza. Great. Congratulations. Good luck. Thank you Steven. Thank you so much for coming by. Okay, coming up in two weeks, another blast from the past and Upper West Side Pizzeria owner, I spoke with several years ago, who also has a second location now in the West Village. It's only here for about a minute and a half sometimes. Some customers are often no one too hot. That's a New York thing too, not too hot because I want to eat on the go and not burn that mouth. So, you know, it could be anything less than a minute. My conversation with Frank Tutto Lomundo of Mama's 2, that's in two weeks on September 27. Remember to subscribe to the show on Apple podcasts and rate us, please. I would love to know what you like or hate about the show. We're @PizzaCityUSA on Instagram and more information about the book or weekly tours. Visit us at pizzacityusa.com. Thanks for listening everybody and here's wishing you an optimal bite ratio, always. [BLANK_AUDIO]