For the first time I can remember, I turned down a slice of pizza. Of course, it was after I had eaten so many slices I lost count, but that’s beside the point. The International Pizza Expo started Tuesday at the Las Vegas Convention Center and by the end of the frist day there were a lot of people like me, stuffed to the giblets with dough, cheese and sauce, doing our best Roberto Duran impression: “No mas!”
I was invited by Las Vegas’s preeminent pizza impresario, John Arena, co-owner of Metro Pizza. The expo has been around for 30 years. Arena’s been there for 29 of them.
This year, he was working at the Caputo booth, a high-end flour that many say is the top brand for pizza making. Arena was in charge of churning out New York-style pies while his teammates worked on Roman-style pizza. It was a well-oiled and delicious machine with Arena pulling out an NYC pepperoni slice right before his comrades would present a classic Italian cheese pie. From there, Arena dazzled with a thick Sicilian pie with a sauce featuring just a hint of anchovies, taking the savory component over the top. The Italians countered with a thin-crust, smoked mozzarella and mushroom pie with no sauce, letting the salty cheese star in the dish.
Arena was clearly proud of his team’s work: “I’m wondering who’s making pizzas in the rest of the world today because all of the greats are here.”
One of those greats was also working the Caputo station. Akinari “Pasquale” Makishima, a Japanese native, is a pizza celebrity. He owns a number of restaurants in his home country and has been crowned the world’s best Neapolitan pizza maker. With his signature wide-brimmed hat, he was approached by at least one aficionado for a picture while he was crafting his next bite.
I toured the convention grounds with Tim Younghans. He’s a sound man for Cirque Du Soleil, but he’s also the proprietor of Mama Napoli Pizza, an upstart Las Vegas pizza truck. We tasted orange chicken pizza, salted caramel soft-serve, and gluten-free and high gluten crusts. For him, the expo presented a world of inspiration for the young entrepreneur. “There’s an elevation in the quality of ingredients and food. There’s a more creative atmosphere than there’s been in the past.”
Besides Caputo, the two busiest areas were at the Stanislaus Food Products and Roma booths. The former was set up like an afternoon at the vineyard, complete with live music and tables filled with antipasto. The Modesto, California company was showing off its extra virgin olive oil, the quality of which was worth the boast. Roma, by Performance Foodservice of Richmond, Virginia, was made to look like a busy deli. On one side, there were muffaletta sandwiches. In the middle, a bevy of pizza slices. On the other side, homemade cannolis.
At the end of the day, Arena demanded I try one more thing: a smooth and clean canned tomato from Bianco DiNapoli, by famed pizza maker Chris Bianco of Phoenix’s Pizzeria Bianco, who was not at the show. It was as good as Arena said it would be. But what was better was walking the floor with Las Vegas’s original pizza king and seeing the world pizza elite’s adoration for him. After 29 of these things, Arena continues to grow as a chef, restaurateur and pizza ambassador, a perfect representative of where the Las Vegas pizza scene is going.
