Pizza Today - July 2017 - 46

the road to pizza & pasta / COMPILED BY BRUCE ALLAR

Special Events FREE for All Registered Attendees

Pizza & Pasta Restaurateurs
With Great Stories to Tell
Wednesday, October 18
10 - 11 a.m.
The Pizza Masters: Sal Basille
and Francis Garcia

Rubirosa Ristorante

Keynotes
Tuesday, October 17
10 - 11 a.m.
Maria Papallardo

When you inherit one of
New York's pioneer pizza
names, the temptation might
be to never change a thing.
But A.J. Papallardo (now
deceased) took the pizza
recipe his father Giuseppe
perfected to make Joe & Pat's
a destination restaurant on
Staten Island and expanded
on it, opening Rubirosa Ristorante in 2010 in Manhattan's Nolita neighborhood.
Since then, Rubirosa has
drawn consistent praise for
its pizza as well as its dishes
featuring fresh-made pastas.

Maria Papallardo stepped
in to run the family business
after her brother A.J. passed
away from a sudden illness in
2015.
She describes herself as
a "pizza heiress" and "first
generation Italian-American,"
but as the guiding force at
Rubirosa she is pulling off the
balancing act of appealing to
both old and new neighborhood residents at the location
near Little Italy.
Maria will tell the story of
Rubirosa - and of her family's second-generation pizzeria and restaurant - during
our opening-day keynote at
Pizza & Pasta Northeast.

Pizza makers, cousins and
best friends, Francis Garcia
and Sal Basille are two regular
guys from the neighborhood
whose DNA reads garlic
and oil. They are fourthgeneration restaurateurs who
opened their first store on
14th Street in 2008. Since
then, Artichoke Basille's Pizza
has expanded to 11 locations,
with more in the works.
Their first TV series, "Pizza
Cuz," aired on the Cooking
Channel and had them out on
the road in a mouth-watering
exploration of pizza across
the country. They followed up
with "Pizza Masters," another
food-trek series with a huge
sense of humor that is still
airing on the Cooking Channel and Netflix.
During their keynote,
Francis and Sal will share
stories old and new. You can
hear them immediately prior
to the second-day opening of
the Pizza & Pasta Northeast
exhibit hall.

New Faces of the
Pizza Pantheon
Panel Discussion,
Moderated by Scott Wiener
Tuesday, October 17
5 - 6 p.m.

A new generation has
emerged in New York, with
one foot in the tradition
established in the last century
by the city's pizza pioneers
and the other firmly planted
in today's fast-paced and
complex marketplace. Scott
Wiener, the knowledgeable
guide who operates Scott's
Pizza Tours, will lead a
discussion with three of New
York's biggest current names
- Paulie Gee (Paulie Gee's),
Mark Iacono (Lucali) and
Roberto Caporuscio (Kesté
Pizza & Vino).
Networking Session
to Follow
6 - 7 p.m.

After our panel of top New
York pizzeria owners concludes its discussion, the floor
will open for questions - and
for attendees to mingle and
start their own roundtable
discussions. Food and drinks
will be served, and you'll be
able to exchange information with fellow pizza- and
Italian-restaurant owners and
managers.

OCTOBER 17-18, 2017 / ATLANTIC CITY CONVENTION CENTER
4 6 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / J U LY 2 0 1 7
http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM
Pizza Today - July 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pizza Today - July 2017
