2024 International Pizza Expo Competition Recap + Friday Night Pizza Party at Dancing Gnome
Let's see how the Pittsburgh pizza makers did at Pizza Expo!
The 2024 Pizza Expo is in the books. There’s hundred of competitors coming in from around the world, but it feels like Pittsburgh makes up 30% of the competitors. Look at any table of results and there’s a good chance a Pittsburgher placed somewhere near the top in the North East division.
The pizza competition is a melting pot of pizza excellence. It’s hundreds of artists doing their interpretation of what pizza is. What is the purest expression of pizza? What is the perfect pizza? Hundreds attempt to wow judges and audiences with combinations and techniques that seem alien to the world of pizza. Others stick close to the classic and focus on creating that pizza that triggers a surge of nostalgia - the pizza of our youth, Friday night family gatherings and birthday parties.
Pittsburgh is home to a mixture of pizza makers at each end of the spectrum. Probably why we had Slice On Broadway in the top 5 for Best Cheese Slice and Eric Von Hansen of Caliente earning third place in the Northeast non-traditional division with a pizza topped with 45 day dry aged New York strip steak cooked rare.
New this year was a category made for Ed Stalewski. An ode to the amateur pizza makers who want to expand their pizza horizons, Ooni hosted a couple of competitions where competitors cooked on Ooni ovens. Ed was made for this. I’m not sure he ever turns off his Ooni oven, constantly baking square pizza to perfection. The guy can’t go to sleep without hearing the crunch of the pizza getting sliced and diced!
Ed finished 7th cooking on the Ooni in the Pan Division, but Caliente superstar Matt Hickey placed third overall in the Ooni Traditional division.
The pizza world has changed drastically in the past ten years. The idea of a pizza shop is an antiquated concept.
No longer do you need to wander around the city like a hermit crab looking for an empty shell to setup a pizza shop in. You need a portable pizza oven, a tent, acknowledgment from the health department and you got yourself a pizza business.
What do these results mean for Pittsburgh pizza? More than anything it shows we have a tenacious crew of pizza makers who refuse to settle for adequate. Pizza makers that are trying new combinations, honing the craft, perfecting their version of pizza. Maybe some of that comes from being an underdog in a nation of great pizza shops. We don’t get the acknowledgement or respect that other places do. So we work harder, making better pizza, challenging ourselves and coming together as a community to evolve the pizza ecosystem in unison.
Pittsburgh International Pizza Challenge results:
Matt Hickey - Caliente - 3rd - Ooni Traditional Division
Ed Stalewski - Independent - 7th in the Ooni Pan Division
Tracey Dykeman - Slice On Broadway - 2nd, Non-Traditional North East Division in the North East (14th overall)
Eric Von Hansen - Caliente - 3rd, Non-Traditional North East Division in the North East (15th overall)
Ed Stalewski - Independent - 21st Non-Traditional Division
Sara Boyer - Iron Born - 28th Non-Traditional Division
Patrick Elston - Gus Franco’s - 51st Non-Traditional Division
Pete Tolman - Iron Born - 25th Pan Division (15th Detroit Style)
Michael Mercurio - Mercurio’s - 53rd in the Pizza Napoletana Division
John McCaffrey - Yellow Bridge Brewing - 4th in the Pizza Triathlon
Full results across all events can be found here.
The Pizza Triathlon as Described by a Pizza Triathlete
John McCaffrey participated in his first ever pizza triathlon every this past week. He ended up in fourth place, a surprise to many pizza veterans. He shared his perspective and I wanted to add it here as not many people outside the pizza world appreciate or understand the strategy and skill that goes into being a pizza triathlete:
I was just super pumped when I found out I was 3rd in the 1st round and got to move on to the final 5. I think the adrenaline got me a little off my game and I knew I had to beat a world champion on the the world champion team, Tara Hattan, in which she beat me by 5 seconds in the finals. I had a better time than her the first round. It was a highly competitive mindset to the veterans, sharing no secrets of strategy or technique, but I shared with anyone who asked. The Caliente crew and Matt Hickey was very open and supportive, they are a great group of pizza makers.
It’s a game strategy for most past winners, and one that I had planned as well - that you should be fast in the first round enough to qualify but not your best you save that for the finals because that’s the time that really matters, you don’t want to lose all your steam from the 1st round and be slower in the finals and and come in 4th.
The acrobatics competition was also mind blowing and life changing to me, I will be better than 10th next year and i am trying to get more people into I because a lot of spectators never knew the world of dough spinning and I was educating a lot of different pizza shop guys, social media pizza hobbyist that never seen the sport before
Weekly Dancing Gnome Friday Night Pizza Party
I have dialed back a lot of my booze intake lately, but every now and then I get the urge for a Lustra, the single best beer I’ve had. Here’s an insane thing for me to admit: I have only had the Lustra from Dancing Gnome. I can’t fathom there is a beer that is that hits as hard and completely as that, so I don’t even try. Look, if you hit a home run with a specific bat at every time you swing, would you change bats? I got a home run going down my through with every sip of the Lustra!
Anyways, with the Blue Sparrow Pizza Bus residency Dancing Gnome has become a great venue on Friday night outings. On Friday’s they host Alberta’s “Old Fashioned Pizza” truck as well. Two pizza shops in one visit - heaven!
We’ll meet friends and their family there, order half a dozen pizzas and go to town. There’s something for everyone and has options ranging from standard to wacky. I’ve grown fond of Luke’s wild creations. Not sure what he’s doing in the pizza lab, but his pizza has improved vastly since he first opened.
Parent Hack: My daughter loves the Nina Turtles and the Blue Sparrow Bus has turtle themed pizzas. The pizzas are wacky, too wacky for her. I get the plain pizza and tell her it’s Leo’s pizza. Leo is the lame one of the turtles anyways…
The Sparrow Pizza from Blue Sparrow is a delight. Wacky, unusual, a little spicy, totally crushable. Pairs well with a Lustra.
Hope you have some great pizza this week!
Thanks and pizza ya later!
-Dan Tallarico, Pizza Journalist