The New Rockaway Pizzeria in Regent Square
I visited the new Rockaway Pizzeria in Regent Square to chat with Josh Sickels and taste some of his newly developed pizzas. He's planning to open mid-April.
There is a mythos that formed around Rockaway Pizzeria. Any Pittsburgher that ventured out to White Oak to try Rockaway returned a convert. The journey so far outside the city was a part of it - you did make the drive so it must be good, right? Josh spent years of his life perfecting and honing his craft to deliver the best pizza product. And to what end? Sure, he’s ranked highly by a number of national pizza publications. He’s a local favorite and quickly climbed the ranks to be one of the region’s top pizza. Josh can easily rattle off every accolade he received - in a chat with me he casually mentioned a number of list and high rankings he appears on, not that he cares about any of that. No, he’s driven to the brink of pizza madness to do better than he’s ever done before.
The Rockaway Pizzeria building sits in the heart of Regent Square on 1137 S. Braddock Ave. The Main Street in Regent Square isn’t that large, but the empty Rockaway Pizzeria draws the most attention. Ever since Josh announced he’d be moving to Regent Square I received updates from residents on every update.
“I saw the booths were being moved in, there’s furniture in there now.”
“It looks like they set up a kitchen where the coffee bar was at the Square Cafe.”
“The stickers and signage are up, it has to be close.”
“Do you think if I knock on the window Josh will give me a single slice of pizza?”
Every article I wrote there would be someone asking me if knew when Rockaway was opening. The city was sick to their stomachs with anxiety. A hunger that couldn’t be sated.
The other day I was dining at D’s Six Pack and Dogs which is across the street from Rockaway. In the hour I was there I saw a dozen people walk by Josh’s shop and press their face up to the glass. Hoping they would see the pizza wizard working, hoping they might be invited in to taste what he’s been working on.
Like Willy Wonka’s factory, no one saw anyone come in or out but they knew there was magic in there. It enchanted an entire town. That nearly empty restaurant held the hopes, dreams and unlimited potential of Pittsburgh’s pizza fanatics. It was a matter of time until the doors would finally open to the public. Lucky for me, after weeks of trying to get on Josh’s calendar I unwrapped my golden ticket. I was invited to swing by Rockaway and see what he’s been up to.
Expanding the Mythos of Rockaway Pizzeria
Josh Sickels at his core is an artistic and creative individual. For years he spent his life convinced he’d be a musician, and when that was shaky he turned to making pizza. “I’d rather fail my way than succeed in a way I didn’t believe in.” Josh told me. Josh wants make a better pizza than the pizza he made yesterday. Constantly tweaking, thinking, ruminating on ways to improve pizza. Someone once mentioned pesto in his presence and he spent the next few days thinking about how to properly execute a pesto pizza. “I get ideas from everything,” Josh told me. “From a picture to something I've eaten or something someone mentioned. When I’m open is when I’m the most creative. This process been a slog. When I have access to my slice case, I’m in the lab, I can cook. I’ll lay in bed Thursday night because I know Friday is a big slice day. I think what can I do that I haven’t done? And ideas start buzzing through my head.”
Driven mad by pizza? Maybe. But we all benefit from his pizza madness.
He does not compromise. He has standards and if you don’t care for his standards you are free to dine elsewhere. No one is forcing you to eat pizza at Rockaway, yet I’m not aware of anyone that has resisted the allure.
In his time away from making pizza he went on a pizza journey where he ate at dozens of pizza shops over a handful of days. He hit up shops in Philly, New York City, Connecticut and helped him expand his idea of what pizza can be. This pizza journey has inspired Rockaway 3.0. You’ll find things here that you can’t find anywhere else in Pittsburgh. He’ll be using the same cheese that the legendary pizza shop Lucali, located in Brooklyn uses, something no other shop in the area has. He’s working on a yellow margarita pizza using very expensive yellow tomatoes, a white pizza with caramelized onions inspired by Best’s Pizza and a refined Sicilian pizza that’s more focaccia-esque than his old formula. In the new Regent Square space he has extra capacity and space to work to evolve his pizza.
I met him on a sunny afternoon. I knocked on his locked doors, he popped his head over the counter and welcomed me into Rockaway. Maybe Josh had been trapped in here forced to make pizzas for the last few months. He certainly looked the part. Flour was not only covering his clothes, it seemed to have bonded to the fabric and skin. Josh prides himself on owning only two pairs of pants and two pairs of shoes. His only luxury in life is sushi. If he’s not making pizza or working at the Hemlock House you can probably find him at Mola spending way too much on great sushi. Let the guy live a little.
He walked me to the kitchen and into his pizza lab. Until recently, he hadn’t been allowed to keep ingredients and food in his kitchen so he was working with sparse products. He told me that his dough hadn’t been behaving properly so the pizza I was about to try would not be reflective of the final product. Despite winning the respect of every pizza enthusiasts, he expects the best from himself.
I was able to try three of Josh’s new creations in my visit to Rockaway. He told me I could take photos of his pizza as long as they don’t suck.
The Yellow Margherita
Josh opened the oven door to reveal a bright yellow pizza sizzling in the heat. As he rotated the pizza the sauce swirled like a tiny wading pool. It was a wet pizza. Josh had been working with these new yellow cherry tomatoes from a vendor he’s trying out. He pays seven times more for these yellow tomatoes than he does for the red tomatoes he uses. But he’s eager to make a pizza no one has made before. The yellow tomatoes behave very differently than the red, they’re wetter and a tad saltier. This adds a degree of difficulty to pizza making, but Josh enjoys teetering on the edge of innovation and disaster. I’m not sure if he knows how to operate any other way.
He pulled the pizza out, sprinkled parmesan on top, added a few basil leaves and drizzled olive oil. Despite the damp pizza we saw in the oven, the end result was a dry martian landscape with pockets of white clouds. It was certainly yellow, but the tomato flavor was missing. Josh thought about ways to improve it. Maybe the parmesan overpowered the tomato. It was very salty, so the cheese could be scaled back. Josh offered up some of the leftover yellow tomato sauce to drizzle on the pizza and I saw his vision flash to life. The tomatoes were bright, vibrant, and tasted like a freshly picked vegetable. Incredibly satisfying. There was something magical there, Josh knew it and he wasn’t about to give up until he dialed in his tomato flavor. He would go back to the lab to tweak the pizza and make sure it was ready for primetime.
Pizza of Ice and Fire
This pizza is something for both fans of the Song of Fire of Ice books as well as heat seekers. It’s a pizza with andouille nduja sausage, slightly spicy, with a drizzle of Calabrian peppers. A very well balanced pizza, not too spicy and the heat dies down if you wait a bit. Josh mentioned this tastes like something you’d find on a Chinese menu, maybe at Chengdu Gourmet. It tastes like it would be spicy, but it never went above a sensation. Like eating a dish with Szechuan peppercorn sprinkled on it.
The first few bites I braced for the sweat to break out, but it never came. The cheese and sauce cleaned up the spice and for the first time I was enjoying a spicy without suffering for the flavor. This is an advanced combination of flavors and showcases the types of innovation and combinations Josh is working to bring to the masses.
The New Rockaway Pizzeria Sicilian Pizza
Josh’s Sicilian pizza is a standout at old Rockaway. The downside to that is he was stretching out the Sicilian dough, letting it sit, then baking it when someone orders. The whole process took forty five minutes. Maybe that’s okay when you’re starting up, but not exactly something you can scale for a crowd of pizza zealots. He had to innovate. His plan was to have the dough rolled out ahead of time then cook them to order. This cuts the process down from forty five minutes to about fifteen.
The new Sicilian is crispier, a little denser. There’s fluff towards the top, but the edges and bottoms are going to provide a killer crunch. It’s a sturdier pie overall, but the flavor is incredible. I distracted Josh while he was finishing up the Sicilian and he added double sauce. This thing was sloppy. Each crunch was met with an explosion of sauce, I was tearing through napkins. But the extra sauce provide a nice dampness that softened some of the crunchier parts of the pizza. If you see an extra saucy Sicilian pizza on the menu you can thank me for that innovation.
For fans of the grandma pie, don’t worry that remains unchanged. Complete with sesame seeds on the bottom.
Great Pizza Makers Steal
Throughout this visit Josh kept referencing the bits and pieces he was taking from other “legendary” pizza shops. The Lucali cheese, the Best Pizza sesame seeds, even the use of screens is inspired by New York pizzerias. I asked Josh what was uniquely his. If these other pizza shops were able to find something unique, what was his contribution to pizza. Maybe that sounds harsh, but Josh didn’t seem too offended by the question. He thought for a moment. She’s Electric by Oasis was playing in the restaurant filling the thoughtful silence.
“The sum of its parts is what ends up being mine, when everything comes together,” Josh told me. “I didn’t invent the clam pizza, I didn’t invent the vodka pizza, the Detroit edge, or the sauce on top. I didn’t invent none of this, I think it’s the way I put it together.”
This is what creatives and innovators do. Everything is connected to everything whether we realize it or not. In a world where anyone can create, what does it mean to be original?
“Oasis is notorious for ripping the Beatles off but their first two albums were massive and they were doing their own thing, even though Blur was better,” Josh explained. “But even the Beatles were way into Chuck Berry and Little Richard and expanded from that from that. The Stones wanted to be the Beatles and then The Stones end up doing their own thing. Pink Floyd’s first album sounded like some weird drugged out version of Sergeant Pepper, and then they did their own thing.”
Josh continued, “I think that I mean my pizza is a little more hard hitting. You go to New York and like there's still like, maybe there's a a little less cheese or the sauce is a little less robust. I think for like for better or worse, you're never gonna get bland pizza at Rockaway. By way, It's always gonna be like aggressively in your face. Some things could be aggressively subtle. Hopefully this yellow pizza works out and it’s gonna be very delicious, but it's not gonna like beat you over the head. You have to like really, you know, kind of float into that tomato flavor.”
Come Sit Next to Me, Grab Yourself a Slice
Our time was running out. My Name is Jonas was floating out of the speakers. I asked Josh if he had advice for the up and coming pizza generation. I see people like Mun’s, 77’ Club, Black Cat Pizza who are pioneering their own kind of pizza. Taking what exists and improve it. Of course, they should be borrowing from Josh like he borrows from others. Josh started from nothing and shot up the pizza ranks, he must have some sage wisdom. His advice? Don’t do it unless you really, really, really love pizza.
“Do not take shit from anyone else that doesn't have a hand in making what you do better,” Josh said. “Lots of people who have never created anything in their lives or owned a business in their life want to tell you how to do things. Ignore them. Experiment. Bring something to the table. Stop fucking putting hot honey on everything. Stop fucking cracking open burrata on a regular slice of cheese pizza and thinking it’s something special. Stop fucking doing Detroit style pizza. Make a Sicilian with an exposed crust, try different flours.”
The Pizza Man Can
During Willy Wonka’s tour something goes slightly wrong at every turn. The products aren’t 100% figured out, kids are nearly killed at every turn, but there’s never a doubt or concern that Wonka will fail. Confidence never waivers. Of course Wonka will, the candyman can do anything. Maybe the slices I ate during this trip weren’t figured out yet, but that didn’t stop them from filling me with the joy that Grandpa Joe and Charlie had when they drank that fizzy lifting drink and floated towards spinning blades. Even in this “sub par” (by Josh’s standards, not mine) experience, when I bit into that first slice of pizza memories came rushing back. I was absolutely crushing these slices. I was filled with joy. Giddy that I could enjoy this pizza again.
Do you remember what Rockaway tasted like? I’m not sure Josh even recalls exactly what Rockaway tasted like months ago. But you will find the satisfaction you crave. I dare say you will find something better and more satisfying than whatever legend you hold in your memory.
Huge thanks to Josh at Rockaway Pizzeria for letting me pester him with questions and making me some delicious pizzas. He plans to open mid-April. Keep an eye on his Instagram for updates.
Hope you enjoyed this write up. I have a lot more from our interview I’ll sprinkle in the next few updates. If you have any questions about Rockaway let me know! Might be able to help get them answered.
Pizza ya later!
-Dan Tallarico, Pizza Journalist
two reputations precede this business, and both are looking truer every day: that the pizza is good, and the owner is A DOUCHE