The Sand Dollar Downtown recently opened at the Plaza, and the pizza you’ll eat there—to help you through those long, fun nights of music and drinks—comes from Michael Vakneen, who just took one of the top prizes in the International Pizza Challenge at Pizza Expo 2022 right here in Las Vegas.
But it won’t be the same stuff you’ve had from his Pop Up Pizza, a fixture at the Plaza since 2012. Vakneen has developed a unique menu of personal pan pizzas for the second location of the storied bar and music lounge that began on Spring Mountain Road, something that can become “their own signature pizza,” he says.
Vakneen has been setting himself apart through dedication to craftsmanship for a long time now. His first-place pie at the competition was a celebration of the pistachio: green dough made with hand-hulled pistachios that had been soaked in water and super-concentrated natural pistachio oil, a lemon-garlic cream sauce, two types of mozzarella plus stracciatella cheese, imported mortadella (with pistachios), preserved lemon, fried mint and fresh basil.
It won in the highly competitive nontraditional division of the IPC and placed second in the overall global competition. More and more of the city’s best pizza makers have competed in the annual event in recent years, but no local has placed higher than Vakneen’s accomplishments this year.
“It’s been a long road, and I’ve been doing this for a while, so it’s nice to get some accolades,” he says. “It really represented where my skill is now. Pop Up is a New York-style place, and we pride it on being pretty authentic. Where I’m at now is a more interesting place.
“A lot of people have reached out to me in Vegas and internationally asking questions about dough and fermentation,” Vakneen continues. “If I can sort of be that person to help others get to where they want to go, where their dreams are with their pizza, that’s something I definitely see myself doing.”
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