Pizza Quest

Welcome back to Pizza Quest! In this episode, we welcome Brett McKay, the founder of the immensely popular website/newsletter/podcast, The Art of Manliness . For the past fifteen+ years Brett, along with his wife Kate, have been on their own quest to explore every aspect of what it means to be a man -- really, a human -- at this particular time in history. Their site has clearly struck a chord, as...

Welcome Back to Pizza Quest! This week we welcome fellow podcaster Jimmy Carbone , host of HRN's Beer Sessions podcast. Jimmy has been hosting his "convivial ale salon" on HRN (Heritage Radio Network) from the network's earliest days, beginning about 15 years ago.  Peter recently was a guest of Jimmy's on Beer Sessions , talking about the pizza/beer connection, so this time Jimmy returns the favor...

Welcome back to Pizza Quest . Mark Todd  is a recurring guest here on Pizza Quest  because, one, I love cheese (every kind!), and two, he's so interesting and makes cheese interesting too as he demystifies this magical, fermented, "spoiled" solid milk so that we can enjoy it in all it's mighty nuances and permutations. In past episodes with Mark, we've explored stretched cheeses in the " pasta fil...

Welcome back to Pizza Quest! Muhammad Abdul-Hadi's and Michael Carter's new book, "We the Pizza," just came out this week. They join us from their restaurant, Down North Pizza, in Philadelphia's Strawberry Hill neighborhood, to tell us all about it. The subtitle of the book, " Slangin' Pies and Saving Lives " is really what makes Down North Pizza unique among the many great pizzerias we feature he...

Welcome back to Pizza Quest!       Joel Kostman supported his family for over 30 years as a New York City locksmith, but that was just his day job. By night, he was (and still is) a serious writer who channeled his locksmithing adventures into a semi-autobiographical fictional cult classic story collection called, " Keys to the City: Tales of a New York City Locksmith. " The New York Times  even c...

Welcome back to Pizza Quest! In this episode, we are joined by Eddie Fischer  (no, not the famous singer and husband of Debbie Reynolds and father of Carrie Fisher), but the OTHER Eddie Fischer, a Jersey guy, the founder of How U Doin? , a new boys and girls club about to launch near Dallas, Texas. Yes, he and I share a long, shared history of East Coast pizza questing but, more importantly, his c...

Welcome back to Pizza Quest 2025, for a new season with lots of new and exciting guests!  We kick off the new season with Chef David Nayfeld,  chef and owner of a hot new restaurant in the shadow of San Francisco's dynamic sports complex in an area called Thrift City  (the restaurant is located on Warrior Way , lest there be any doubt about Chef Nayfeld's lifelong allegiance to Steph Curry and the...

Once again, the operative word for this episode is Quest,  as we welcome author, mentor, and game changer, Dr. Marc B. Cooper . Marc's mission and personal quest is to restore a sense of meaning and purpose for those of us who fall into the "senior citizen" bracket (but, really, it's a timeless mission for all of us regardless of age). The title of his new book. "Older to Elder,"  says it all, so...

As most of you know by now, for us it's as much about the Quest as it is about the Pizza , and this week's guest, author David Amadio , takes us on a deep dive into the quest of his father, Jerry Amadio, a master carpet installer and rug expert, who is just as dedicated to his own craft as any pizzaiolo that I know is to making the perfect pizza.  Jerry Amadio is legendary in the carpet community,...

Marco Pacelli is doing something wonderful in Redondo Beach, California at his pasta shop, Fatto a Mano . After a lifetime of working for Michelin-level fine dining restaurants, he and his wife Arlene decided to open a small pasta and Roman-style pizza shop showcasing the foods inspired by Marco's Aunt Concettina. She was the woman who shaped his culinary passion during the summers he spent with h...

Chef Tandy Wilson is an important player in the Nashville culinary renaissance. Hear how this classically trained chef paid his dues and then returned to his roots to create a signature style all his own (while winning a James Beard Award in the process), in this latest episode of Pizza Quest. Click here for the video versions of Pizza Quest .  If you count on HRN content, become a monthly sustain...

Chef Fiore Tedesco was born completely deaf and couldn't hear anything until he was five years old, when his hearing was miraculously recovered through a risky series of operations. He made up for lost time after that, retraining himself to not only hear, speak, and expand his vocabulary, but to also play drums in a rock band and then travel the world with his bandmates. Eventually, he brought tog...

Pizza and bagels in the Mississippi Delta might have once been considered a non sequitur, but Marisol and Rory Doyle have put the small town of Cleveland, Mississippi on the global pizza map, thanks to a recent NY Times article featuring their destination wood-fired pizzas. What started as a once-a-week bagel cart has grown into a local treasure and destination pizza cafe. Hear all about the Doyle...

On today's episode we welcome back to one of our long-time favorites, pizza master Leo Spizzirri . When we first featured Leo on Pizza Quest about seven years ago we introduced him as the "Greatest guy you never knew," but a lot has changed since then. His ever-present short reels on Instagram, his feature length YouTube instructionals, the many demos he performs at every pizza and food conference...

Brigit Binns first appeared on Pizza Quest a few years ago when we filmed some cooking segments with her and her husband, actor Casey Biggs , at the Forno Bravo Wood-Fired Oven Expo in Salinas, California in 2017. Brigit and Casey have also been operating a wonderful retreat and event center in California's Central Coast Wine Country called Refugio. But, she's far too prolific for settling into th...

In this episode we step away from pizza for a moment and focus on culinary teaching for the everyday person. I first met Chef Alyssa Gorelick about 15 years ago when she was at the helm of a very innovative vegetarian restaurant called Fern . She was young and single and super talented. Fast forward to today and she is now Alyssa Wilen, a mother, happily married to her husband Andrew , and for a n...

We are in the midst of American greatness on the International pizza stage. First, we recently had Caputo Cup champion Siler Chapman on with us. Now, his compatriot and fellow member of the US Pizza Champions team, Audrey Kelly , is here to tell us about her own championship gold medal in the pan pizza category at the Caputo Cup . Audrey has been on Pizza Quest in the past, showing us how she make...

Siler Chapman , owner of King of Fire Pizza in Charlotte, NC, was already a world champion long before he went to Naples this year. Nevertheless, he earned the title back when he was a 20-something kid obsessed with acrobatic dough tossing and showmanship as part of the US Pizza Champions Team. Now, twenty-two years later, he's a serious business operator and a mentor to a new generation of up and...

Welcome back to Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart.  We wrap up our summer season of Golden Oldies with a special replay of our panel session at the Atlantic City Pizza and Pasta Expo Northeast, recorded October, 2022.  The episode is entitled “Tinkering With Your Dough .”  Peter and guest panelist and pizza master John Gutekanst  of Avalanche Pizza  in Athens, OH,  field questions from an audience o...

Back in September we aired this show with guest Scott Deley . Here's what we said back then: There is no question that Ooni Ovens  have taken the world by storm, even eclipsing their worthy competitor RoccBox, which had a nice head start. How have they done it? Fortunately, Scott Deley, who just published a book called The Ooni Pizza Project , joins the show to tell us all about it. The book is lo...

Peter’s guests this week are Noel Brohner  of Slow Rise Pizza , who has appeared on the show in the past, along with his colleague, molecular biologist James Gaffney . They have been working, along with a few other microbe geniuses, to create a powdered wild yeast sourdough starter that can be used just like instant yeast to make sourdough breads and pizza doughs without the need of keeping a star...

In our never-ending celebration of artisanship wherever we find it, this week’s episode turns our lens onto one of the truly great American crafts, distilled whiskey, most notably, bourbon. On the show to explain it all is Peter’s long-time friend, culinary educator, and award-winning author Albert Schmid , whose newest book, Bourbon 101 , was just recently released by The University Press of Kent...

In this episode, Steven Raichlen shares with us his long journey from Reed College, to writing for an underground newspaper in Boston, to landing in south Florida where he has since authored 32 books and won numerous James Beard Awards — all driven by his global quest in search of every known iteration of cooking with fire. His books have sold millions of copies and his public broadcasting cooking...

This week we celebrate the one-year anniversary of our conversation with the renowned expert on everything grilled, smoked, and cooked with or over fire, Meathead Goldwyn . Grilling season is still in full swing, so these evergreen tips and tricks from the master will serve as either new or refreshed information. Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling , is his award winning and best-...

As we review and repost some of the most popular shows of the past year, the bagel theme is still the hot nationwide trend. In this episode, our beloved pizza Yodi's, John Arena and Brian Spangler , return to explore their latest obsession. They are joined by the "Bagel Whisperer," (or maybe, better, "The Gandalf of Bagels"), Philip Korshak , who was recently on the show to discuss the closing of...