Pizza Today - December 2018 - 12

Expo Spotlight
BILL OAKLEY

Opening Keynote Speaker Announced!
International Pizza Expo - March 4 - 7, 2019 (Exhibits: March 5 - 7) - Las Vegas Convention Center

his year's opening keynote
speaker will be Chris Bianco,
who is arguably the nation's most
revered pizzaiolo. In 2010 he ended up
in the emergency room due to a severe
asthma attack and a bout with pneumonia. The culprit was years of exposure to
smoke from his wood-burning oven and
airborne flour. That experience prompted
him to rethink his business. The Arizona
Republic printed the news on its front
page under the headline: "Food Stunner:
Pizza guru Bianco will leave the kitchen."
Born in the Bronx, he dropped out
of high school, worked his way through
various restaurant kitchens and opened
his first pizzeria in downtown Phoenix,
Arizona, more than 30 years ago.
Bianco won a contest in the 1980s
where the prize was a plane ticket to
anywhere he wanted to go in the United
States. He chose Phoenix, and even he
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wasn't entirely sure why. But when he
got there, something felt right. A chance
encounter with a Renato wood-burning
oven at a catering gig led him to try his
hand at pizza making. It was an instant
hit at the event, which prompted a local
grocer in attendance to offer him a small
piece of real estate in his store for the
first Pizzeria Bianco back in 1988. After
some tinkering and learning, he opened
his first brick-and-mortar store in the
mid 90s. His pizzas have been proclaimed "perfect" (Mario Batali) or the
just the absolute "best" (the food critics
Bill Addison of Eater, Ruth Reichl and
Jeffrey Steingarten of Vogue). For years,
he baked every pie himself, a routine
that, combined with the restaurant's
relative small size, created long waiting
lines that regularly lasted more than two
hours. His reputation as one of the nation's top pizza makers was solidified in

2003, when he became the first pizzaiolo
to win a regional chef award from the
James Beard Foundation.
But the acclaim fueled his anxiety
when his physician recommended that
he retire from the oven. With that, he
decided to go into a partnership with
Jamie Oliver, the famed British chef and
cookbook author, and his celebrity friend
Jimmy Kimmel. For nearly three years he
spent a week a month in London, helping to open and operate Union Jacks, a
wood-burning-oven concept. Ultimately,
this lead to a decision he had to make:
the choice to go all-in or return home to
Phoenix to make what he had there better. He returned home full-time in 2014.
His dough is made from a combination of hard red spring wheat from
Arizona and Utah. Bianco also uses local
White Sonora Wheat, one of North
America's oldest surviving varieties, for
the bread at Pane Bianco, a sandwich
shop and bakery, and for the pasta served
at Tratto's, his Italian restaurant concept.
His most recent collaboration, Roland's,
is a unique all-day Mexican café, which
opened in April.
As one of the premier independent
pizza makers in the world and a shining
star of our industry, I think you'll find
Chris's story fascinating - an inspiring
opening act on the busy first exhibit hall
day at Pizza Expo.
Best regards,
Bill Oakley
Group Show Director

http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM

Pizza Today - December 2018

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