Big Ideas 2015: The Year of the Regional Pizza

I love pizza. I love eating it. I love making it. I love talking about it. I love talking to people who make it. I love talking to people who eat it. I love looking at pictures of it on the internet. You get it.

I love pizza so much that I celebrated my 30th birthday with a trip to Phoenix, Arizona. Why Phoenix? Phoenix is home to Pizzeria Bianco, the pizzeria where Chris Bianco plies his trade as the godfather of the Neapolitan pizza movement in the United States.

The Wiseguy at Pizzeria Bianco, Phoenix

Back when Pizzeria Bianco opened in 2002, many folks considered it to be the finest Neapolitan pizza in the United States. When I went recently, I was expecting to taste something I had never experienced before. Instead, I had a different realization: thanks to Chris's hard work and diplomacy, there is phenomenal neo-Neapolitan pizza nearly everywhere in the United States.

In Brooklyn, Franny's and Paulie Gee's. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Oak & Rye, Pizzaiolo, and Pizzeria Delfina. Even just up the road from Pizzeria Bianco in Flagstaff, there's Pizzicletta.

Now that fantastic Neapolitan pizza is so ubiquitous, my prediction for 2015 is that the next big wave in the pizza world will be regional styles.

Here in the Bay Area, there are already a few standouts: A New York, almost New Jersey style at Emilia's in Berkeley:

Sausage and onion pie at Emilia's

Over at Tony's Pizza Napoletana, the Detroit style is a standout:

Tony Gemignani with his Detroit-style pie (photo via Tony's Pizza Napoletana)

Back on the East Coast, Slice Blog founder Adam Kuban is serving bar style pies (inspired by the Colony Grill in Stamford, CT) to monthly sell-out crowds at his Margot's Pizza pop-ups:

photo via Adam Kuban (@margotspizza on Instagram)

Rubirosa in lower Manhattan is tipping its hat to the cracker-thin pies native to Staten Island:

Vodka pie at Rubirosa

If the last decade was about elevating pizza from a comfort food to the realm of gourmet, the next decade will be about a return to the roots: the pizza of your childhood, wherever you grew up. There are as many styles of pizza as there are places to call home.

For me, that place is New Haven, CT. Luckily for me, New Haven is home to a phenomenal regional style--like New York, but heavy on coal-oven char.

Garden special white pie (front) and mushroom and muzz pie at Sally's Apizza

This is the pie of my memories and my dreams. It transports me back to my childhood. I can't wait for it to be available in more places.

What regional style do you hope will go mainstream in 2015?