That slaps
What I learned at the only Manhattan school dedicated to pizza making
“It’s snowing. Are you still open for classes?” That’s what travellers and locals would call to ask Mark Bello, owner of Pizza School NYC. He’d respond, “Look, if the lights are on on Broadway, the lights are on at Pizza School.”
Of course, in March 2020, the lights on Broadway did go off, but this is a good news story. Pizza School NYC found a way to thrive during the pandemic, offering virtual pizza-making classes to the world. Now, in-person classes are back, and my partner, Simon, and I travelled to the city this winter specifically to attend one.
The only Manhattan school dedicated to pizza making — a sign announces, “We do not sell pizza, we sell knowledge” — it’s a small shop, which makes you feel like you’re in the way at Nonna’s and need to make yourself useful.
As we settled into our station, I felt like a kid again, sitting on a short stool, waiting for class to begin. I even got a gold star later for guessing where Hawaiian pizza was invented (easy: Canada).
And then in came Neil Lesneski, the school’s primo professor, transplanted from California both in drawl and style. Clad in shorts and high socks, his uniform even in the dead of winter, Lesneski said his favourite way to dress up a pizza is to frequent Chinatown nearby; BBQ duck was his number one improvisation.
He has cooked pies on all five coasts — Chicago being the fifth, he joked — and is known for his dough-stretching skills at the “pizza Olympics,” the World Pizza Games at the annual International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. He almost won the competition one year, but his elbow’s torque caused a critical tear.
“All right! Everyone, tell me where you’re from, why you’re here, and the best pizza you’ve ever had,” Lesneski prompted.
“Domino’s,” one student replied, to a round of laughter. In fact, most people in our group were Americans, giving us insight into New York’s best slices. The consensus: Scarr’s Pizza takes the pie, with Prince Street Pizza sliding into second. (The latter is slated to open a Toronto location this spring.)
I was the last to speak. “I wish I could say my partner’s pizza,” I began, “but that’s why we’re here.”
Simon is what I would call a hobbyist. From millinery courses to bridge classes, he’s a learner. But the only hobby that has stuck is canning. Every September, he heads up Highway 400 to bring back hundreds of engine-red tomatoes. Within days, our apartment is home to 300 jars of tomato sauce. Nonna, we call him.
But he is a tragic pizza maker, recently gifting himself an outdoor pizza oven, and on two separate nights we went hungry. So for his birthday, I gifted him a weekend in New York to learn from the best.
Distinguished by its thick crust, thin body and wide slices, New York-style pizza is rumoured to have originated in the city’s Little Italy in the early 1900s with Lombardi’s, believed to be the first pizzeria in the United States (though pizza historians continue to debate this).
In a city made vibrant by emigration, the story continues, one of the workers, originally from Naples, began making pizza for five cents a pie, or by the inch for a slice. Antonio Totonno Pero would come to own his own pizzeria on Coney Island, called Totonno’s.
Within four hours at Pizza School, we were on fire. We learned a recipe for a 60-second, five-ingredient sauce — a trade secret reserved for course takers. We learned inventive topping combinations, like blueberries, mozzarella and ricotta (dubbed “blueberry pie”), and how to tamp down dough using the “soft bongos” technique.
The school will even give you a Dough Emergency Hotline if you knead — their joke, not mine. All kidding aside, Bello said that while some come to learn a new hobby, some participants have gone on to start their own pizzeria. When asked his advice, Bello said, “One, you’re never better than your ingredients. They don’t have to be crazy expensive or only grown in Italy … but use the best-quality flour, without bleach. And two, less is more. When you overload a pizza, you compromise the finished product.”
Perhaps the best piece of advice was to come hungry. While we constructed, Lesneski fed us samples of what we could make, while the other staff took drink and ingredient orders. You make four pizzas in four hours, and the place is stacked with boxes to take your pies back to your hotel.
We left with the secrets to excellent pizza, which, lucky for us, aren’t exclusive to this city. “You don’t have to have New York water,” Bello said. “You just have to have passion, love and good ingredients.”