A LIFE IN PIZZA WITH BRANDON HOY OF ROBERTA’S

A Life in Pizza is a Fiero-exclusive web series documenting conversations with renowned pizzaioli and host Peter de Jong, the CEO and founder of Fiero Group.

Join host Peter de Jong as he tours the garden and has a beer with Brandon Hoy, the Brooklyn co-owner/co-founder of Roberta’s Pizza. Roberta’s started in Brooklyn “as a simple idea, of a watering hole to bring people together,” but exploded into a cultural phenomenon, re-framing what the pizza experience could be and inadvertently creating a national and now global trend of “craft pizza”.

In the development of what makes a Roberta’s pizza, a Roberta’s pizza (i.e. the puffy, leopard-spotted cornicione topped with fresh local ingredients in playful and unusual combinations), Brandon explained that it grew out of an honest and simple effort to make something that tasted great, without worrying about any sacred cows of pizza tradition.

Brandon Hoy:

In the early days, it was just a pure expression of what we were. So we weren’t trying to create a new genre, we weren’t trying to “de-Italianize” pizza. We just were making what we thought was the best. We were pulling from what we liked, the freshest things and hand-crafted things.

In recent years, Roberta’s has focused on carefully expanding outwards from their shop and headquarters in Bushwick, to open locations in the new Urban Space market next to Grand Central Station, a new location in Culver City, CA, other pop-up locations in California, mobile pizza oven events, and even a frozen-pizza line (frozen pizza made in a wood-fired oven). During this expansion, the Pavesi oven and mobile oven from Fiero has been their ovens of choice, and in Brandon’s words, “the backbone of this whole company.”

The expansion comes with the acknowledgement from Brandon that he can only provide the Roberta’s experience to a limited number of people, due to the focus on a fresh, local hand-crafted pizza.

“I’m never going to be able to give everybody this experience, this is a very unique place, the neighborhood is unique.” Brandon explained, “Us pushing the pizza out with the mobile ovens and all these things – we’re finding this way to reach lots of people. The ultimate goal is how do I get Roberta’s pizza in to as many people’s hands as possible? How do I get them to experience something that I am so proud of?”

To find out more about Roberta’s pizza, please visit robertaspizza.com