The Chef Show (2019–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - The Chef Show - full transcript

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[upbeat salsa music playing]

[man] We go with the starters.

Okay. Jon, let's go.

This is what I'm interested in here.
Tell me about your starter.

This is a technique that is preserved
in my family for 62 years.

It's actually the first time
that somebody sees how to make it.

I flew down with this one.

- So, through from Naples to here.
- Okay. Yeah.

So... And you dried it out?
And have you brought, like...

- No, no, I brought it in a little jar.
- A jar.

Covered, and, you know,
plastic wrap everything.



And hopefully the customs didn't stop me.

- Right. Because this is a pet.
- Yeah.

So we dump this...

- The whole thing?
- All two, yeah.

Both.

[Jon] When did you last feed this?

Uh, this one was yesterday.

'Cause it's the perfect...

It doesn't smell funky at all.
It smells beautiful.

But also we're going to reinforce it
from some dough.

We will put a little bit of the dough
from yesterday.

[Jon] Why do you use that?

So you need a little bit of strain
from fresh dough,

which is super elastic, as you see.



Yeah. All we're going to do is like this.

It's the same pinch that you do
when you do mozzarella.

- [Jon] Mm-hmm.
- [Daniele] See?

And if you were doing gluten-free dough,
it wouldn't do that, right?

No, gluten-free,
it's a crazy thing to work with.

I bet this neighborhood
has a lot of gluten-free.

- [Jon laughs]
- Yeah.

[Daniele] You're going to add
a little bit more flour.

Everything is measured.
I don't believe by feel.

That's Neapolitan tradition.

What I do here is a family recipe,
so I have this from when I was a kid.

- Should I get in there?
- Yeah.

[Jon] What kind of flour is this?
Do you import it?

[Daniele] Yeah, this is a mix
of type one flour and zero flour.

And you use the same for the pasta
as well? Or different?

In Italy,
that's what we use for pasta, too.

Not double O?

No, I discovered this one
adds a better taste to what you do.

[Daniele] Now, at this point,
we're going to add the wet salt.

Little by little.

Now that we are adding the salt,
you're going to feel it...

- [Jon] Tightening up.
- [Daniele] Yeah, tightening up.

Is this... He's doing it right?
Where you just keep punching and folding?

[Daniele] He's doing it right. What I like
to do is to break up the dough, like this.

When we mix a large quantity of flour,
we just...

flip it.

You wait when all the flour is absorbed.

- And then you add more flour.
- [Roy] Yeah.

I can tell it's not the first time
he does this.

You know, I used to work
in a pizza place when I was in college.

That was New York pizza.
A lot different than this.

You had a big mixer with a big dough hook.

Why don't you... Yeah, why don't you use
a mixer with a dough hook?

The problem that I discovered
with a machine is that,

when you use a machine,
there is too much friction.

- It generates too much heat?
- Yeah.

The dough changes temperature,

and it ends up having
a chewier texture in the end.

Roy's making pizza now, too.

- [Roy] Yeah.
- Oh, really?

- [Daniele] That's awesome.
- It's like bowling-alley pizza.

- [Daniele] That's great.
- [Roy laughs]

I'm down for that.

Okay, at this point, we're going
to take it, put it over here...

incorporate all the flour
back into the...

[Roy] How many of these a day?

A lot. Well, one of these will give us,
like, 100, 120.

- So we do, like, five or six.
- Five or six a day.

[Daniele]
When all the flour's over here...

- You want to help me?
- Yeah, sure.

- Just break it.
- Break it and then fold it, yeah?

- [Roy] You sprinkle flour back in?
- [Daniele] Mm-hmm.

[Jon] Will your half of the dough
taste better than my half?

No, it's going to be the same.

If you put the same love,
it's going to always be the same.

[Roy] It's like a Swedish massage.

It's almost like making dumpling though,
right?

[Roy] Yeah. Very much.

[Daniele] The curious thing
about the Asian culture,

the idea for gluten-free came from...

watching people making rice noodles.

How you guys,
you know, mix the the flour before.

[Roy] Yeah.

That gave me the idea to have
a little bit of pliability with the dough.

[Roy] You should play around with
other ingredients, like mung bean,

and acorn makes a great noodle as well.

I'm almost done. How about you?
Let me see.

- [Jon] Not as much as you.
- [Daniele] Not bad.

- It's actually not bad.
- [Roy] You did good over there.

- Let's change.
- Okay.

- [Daniele] You finish this.
- [laughs]

[Jon] You feel the difference.

[Roy] His feels like a sleeping puppy.

[Jon] And mine feels like a muskrat.

[Daniele] It's okay.

[Daniele] We'll let it relax a bit.

- [Jon] Yeah.
- [Daniele] For two hours.

This will become smooth as a baby's butt.

- [Jon] No oil, huh?
- [Daniele] No oil.

When I worked in the pizza place,

they would put
a little olive oil always on.

The reason why I don't put olive oil
is because it's adding fat.

Yes.

And you make more work for the yeast.

- [Jon] Okay.
- Because yeast has to metabolize starch,

sugar, and all that stuff.

So to be digestible for you...

Yeah.

...you have to give
the easiest job to the yeast.

So that's why there is no oil, there's
no butter, there's no sugar at all.

You don't even need sugar.

The sugar that it needs,
it gets it from the flour.

And the salt, I noticed
you used only a certain amount, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there is just
a certain amount of salt.

- Is it sea salt?
- It's a sea salt and it's...

a certain technique.

It preserves the way
that the ancients used to do it.

We have the salt, we have the tomato.

The San Marzano tomato,
produced for Pizzana.

Yes. So you have a hillside
that you commission?

You were telling me this
when I was here.

We have a little spot in Naples,
in San Marzano.

San Marzano is a close...
It's a really little town.

There's two kinds of soil.
There's one, the volcanic soil...

from the Mount Vesuvius.

The other one is a thermal soil, so...

So they mix together
the sulfur and the salinity

and you have these beautiful tomatoes.

So when you see cans of San Marzano...

There are seeds
planted in the San Marzano region

or there is San Marzano style,

which is seeds that may even be planted
here in LA.

- So it's like "Cuban" cigars. Cuban seed.
- Yeah.

There's no way
that they can supply everybody.

- Yeah, maybe.
- But when you commission it,

you know you're buying
that particular parcel of land

and all the tomatoes come here?

That's the good stuff,
to be from that side of town.

Knowing people
that do this special product.

It's nice when you work with farmers

and when we work with these people that
take that much care of what they do.

It's sharing the love
that you have for food.

Yeah.

So this is a wood oven
and it vents out there

- and then it gets picked up by the hood?
- Yeah.

And is this the same

- as how you would do it back in Naples?
- Yeah.

The oven was made by a friend of mine,
Stefano, in Naples.

- They made it there and shipped it here?
- Yeah.

[Roy] Wow.

And that's a stone...
Inside, that's stone in there?

This stone is a stone from Mount Vesuvius.

A stone from Mount Vesuvius.

- [Jon] It's like a superhero movie.
- I know!

[laughing]

[Daniele]
Here's all the dough from yesterday.

I'm going to show you something cool.

If we open up,
inside you can see a spider web.

- [Jon] Oh, wow.
- [Roy] Nice.

- [Daniele] See it?
- [Jon] Yes.

- That's all the gluten strands?
- [Daniele] Yeah.

You get the texture from it
and it also captures the moisture

and, as it expands,
makes it like a balloon.

[Daniele] Usually, what the gluten does
is to create a web

and the web needs to trap the...

Moisture.

- The carbon dioxide...
- Okay.

...that is created from the yeast
eating the sugar and the starch.

Basically, the poop of the yeast
is the carbon dioxide.

- [Jon] Right.
- So that's what it does.

But you're not really a high hydration
dough, because also the steam, doesn't...

- Like, in sourdough, the steam makes it...
- Yeah.

But also because we are fermenting
for a long time.

So if you can see, it's still wet.

[Roy] Yeah.

[Jon] So you still get natural steam
from it, yeah?

[Daniele] Take one out,
cut it, and then you go.

[Jon] Yes, Chef.

[Daniele] There you go.

So all we do, we're just shaping.

We just try to pull gently.

[Jon] You call this focaccia?

[Daniele]
It's close to what a ciabatta is.

Ciabatta.
Focaccia would have oil on it, yeah?

Yeah.

I just don't want to destroy
all the air inside,

so that's why I do it gently.

Now I'm pressing it out, so it will
give strength in the oven to grow.

And just take one side.

Go. Put it on your hand.

It's all the weight
that has to stretch it.

- [Jon] Like making a pizza.
- [Daniele] Yeah.

- That's great.
- [Jon] How are we doing, boss?

[Daniele] You're hired.

Now we're going to...

- You know the temperature by feel?
- I know it by feel.

It's how long you keep your hand in?
Is that how you know how hot it is?

No. It depends from which spot
you can feel the heat.

If I can stand my hand inside the oven,
over here, for a long time,

it means that the oven
is around 550 or 600.

For the bread, like this is perfect.

For the pizza, we have to go 700, 650.

If you feel it in your face,
that means that you're going too much.

We will put it in the oven.

- Look at them growing in the back.
- [Roy] Oh, yeah, look at that.

[Jon] You flip them.

[Daniele] Yeah,
because I forgot to tell you

that the bottom side has to be up
when you do bread.

How do you know what the bottom is
and what the top is?

When you start with the bottom, you always
remember that that side has to be up.

- Oh, how it sat as it proofed?
- Yeah.

[Jon] I understand.

I thought they were going to grow
just straight, but they roll a little bit.

[Jon] That's why you can make
a sandwich out of them.

Cut that right in half.
A few little meatballs in there.

- You don't do subs, do you?
- [Daniele] Not yet.

Maybe we'll try one.

[Roy] Call it a hero.

[Jon] Maybe we'll have
the first sub sandwich here.

[Jon chuckles]

[Roy] My mouth is salivating.

Here, smell it.

Nice.

- That's how it is inside.
- Beautiful.

Look at that. Look at that crumb.

[Roy] Amazing.

[Daniele] You can put olive oil.

A little bit of salt.

Wow. That's delicious.

- See how moist it is inside?
- [Jon] Yes.

I thought it was going to be hollow.

If I stretch it and let it grow,
it would be hollow.

[Roy] So good.

[Roy] You could just eat that every day.

- Every day.
- It's perfect.

Thank you. Cheers.

- Cheers, guys.
- [Jon] Salud.

[Daniele] Basically, there is pork,
there is lamb, and there is beef.

So, lamb,
I've never heard of that in meatballs.

- Usually, it's pork, veal, and beef.
- [Daniele] Yeah.

It's true. We use the lamb because I like
the little extra flavor for it.

But, you know,
I like it because I grew up with it.

Don't ask me why,
but this is my mom's recipe.

I don't even question it. I just open up
the book and that's what it is.

Basically, meatballs used to be done
with what you have in the refrigerator.

You don't throw away stuff.

- You do a meatloaf or you do meatballs.
- Yeah.

[Jon] Are these breadcrumbs
from your bread?

- Or are you...
- These ones are panko.

The only reason why I don't use
the breadcrumbs from my bread

- is because there is never leftovers.
- [Jon laughs]

It's true, unfortunately. But it's good.

Do I do this in any particular order?

What my mom used to do
is always break the egg...

into the mixer.

You just start to mix a little bit.

And then, because the eggs are coating
the meat, we start with the seasoning.

Salt.

And you do this all with measurements,
yeah?

Yeah, always.

- [Jon] Pepper.
- [Daniele] Salt and pepper.

Some Calabrian chilies and...

garlic.

Calabrian chilies is our equivalent
of Korean red chili paste.

- [Roy] Yeah.
- We put that everywhere.

We add some Parmigiano-Reggiano,
aged 36 months.

Breadcrumbs. And then we add the milk.

[Jon] Is that very common, the milk?
My grandma would use that, too.

Yeah, Grandma Joan.

Then we do a lot of parsley.
See, it's not really fine chopped,

because it has to resemble
what a mom will do on a Sunday.

[Jon laughs]

[Daniele] We're going
to use some clarified butter.

The reason why we use clarified butter

is because,
if we put olive oil underneath,

it will burn the bottom of the pizza.

- [Jon] Of the meatball?
- [Daniele] Of the meatball, sorry.

- Thinking about you making dough.
- Everything's pizza to you.

- Yeah.
- [Jon laughs]

I even dream about pizza.
I can't stop about it.

For both of you,
like with the Kogi tacos and the pizza,

where there's one big star on your menu

and you cook it,
and you will cook it every day for years,

could you still enjoy it the same way?

Yeah, I eat it almost every day.

I eat the taco every day.

I eat it in the morning.
Sometimes, I have two pizzas a day.

That's why I'm growing
my friend over here.

That's how I am with the taco, too.
I eat it and I'm wondering,

will there ever be a day
where I don't want to eat it?

I'll know that, that day,
something's wrong.

And I've never had that day yet, so...

Yeah, it's the same thing.

When I eat the Margherita, I also do it
every day as a quality test, you know.

But also because it's an excuse
for me to eat more pizza.

So each ball has to weigh 45 grams.

[Jon] That's it. Right on the number.

This is going to get
very competitive very quickly.

[Jon laughs] Oh!

A little too much.

Take a little off, Chef?
What have you got?

[Roy] That killed you, right there.

[laughs]

- Look at that.
- [Daniele] Forty-six.

It's good. Forty-four is good.

[Jon] Oh, look at that!

- [Daniele] You have the handle.
- Forty-six, here we go.

[Jon] I can see why you have to come
in here at 4:00 in the morning.

Because it takes me six times
to make one meatball.

Forty-four, Chef. Is that all right?

- [Daniele] Yes, Jon.
- Sometimes there's a baby there,

then there's the parents.

[laughs]

Somebody's not so hungry.
They want one gram less.

That's what the pie-man used to say
when I worked at the pizza place.

I'd say, "You're cutting it all crooked."

Because he cut it fast, you know?

Put it in the box,
get it out the door. I was a delivery guy.

I'd say, "What are you doing?"

"There's a little kid, there's a grandma.

Not everybody wants the same size piece."

[laughs]

That happens to us, too, sometimes.

- [Jon] Oh, yeah?
- And that's the answer Fortino gives me.

He says, "You never know. There is a lady
that doesn't want to eat that much"

so I cut a little piece."

[Jon] Oh, see you're smart, too.
You put it down before you roll it.

Is that how you do the nuggets at Locol?

At Locol, yeah. We just scoop...
Yeah, we scoop them.

We weigh them and then we scoop them.

But now we've gotten the scoop
to match the weight,

so now they can just go...

So should I get a scoop, too?

It could work.

I mean, it depends.
You just have to do the test.

If you get the right scoop
and put it on and keep doing it,

if it matches, then it'll be the same.

Maybe like a number eight
or something like that

on the ice-cream scoop.

But then it depends on the humidity
with the panko, you know.

[laughs]

Right, now Roy's got to organize it.

That's what he does.
He gets it all perfect.

- I'm getting better, Chef.
- [Daniele] Yeah.

I'm hitting the weight now.

Does that bother you, Roy?

It's okay.

- [Roy] How long?
- [Daniele] Around five to six minutes.

[Roy] Oh, nice.

Do you cook it in the sauce, too?

[Daniele] Yeah. We just roast a bit

and then we soak it
in the sauce for an hour.

And then we just turn it off.

[Jon] So when my grandma
would make her gravy, she would...

You start with the meat first
in the bottom, yeah?

And then she'd even cook
the meatballs in the pot.

- And then you add the sauce on top.
- Yeah.

You can do it like this
in the wood-burning oven.

You can do it frying in the pan,

or you can even do it directly in the pot
where you have to cook the sauce.

Now we're going to dump into a sauce.

[Roy] Nice.

[Jon] Now, if I took
a piece of that bread

and took a meatball
and put it in the bread...

[Daniele] Yeah.

...you make a little sandwich.

[Daniele] Yeah.

[Jon] When we'd go on a road trip,
my grandma would put it in the bread

and it would be cold.

And that's a memory I have.

[Daniele] I used to eat it at school.

So let's grab a sandwich.

I like this.

[in Spanish]
Can I have the knife for the bread?

[Jon and Roy chuckling]

[Roy] That's beautiful.

["Via Con Me" by Paolo Conte playing]

[Roy] Yeah, beautiful.

Just like the Bronx.

So now you're going a little hotter?
Is that what you're doing?

Just a little bit.

[Jon] Not messing around.

[Daniele] All yours, guys.

[Jon] Thank you, Chef.

[Roy] Thank you.

What do you say? "Marone?"

Maronna mia.

In New York, it's "marone", right?

It comes from Neapolitan.

It's Neapolitan dialect.

And this isn't even on the menu, huh?

No, it's not.

Now, if I come in and want this,
what's the code word?

- [Daniele] On the side.
- On the side.

[Daniele] You say, "I know the chef."

[Jon] How good is that?

[Daniele] We destroyed it. [chuckles]

[Jon] Is that sauce...

Uh, how do you start that?
Just the tomato?

[Daniele] Salt and tomato.

That's it?

Salt, tomato, and time.

So all of that texture is just coming
from the tomatoes and the salt?

No garlic, no nothing, just the tomato?

It's really mineral.

It doesn't need that much.

Mm. Wow. [chuckles]

- [Daniele] You can see why it's special.
- [Jon] That's so good.

- What do you mean, "mineral"?
- It's Mount Vesuvio.

- Right.
- [Daniele] Yeah, it's true.

- It gets in your mouth.
- [Roy] It's in the soil.

- It leaves you with a sweet mouth.
- [Jon] It does.

- [Roy] They should make that into a candy.
- [Daniele laughs]

Yeah, a candy pop.

[Roy] You don't cook the sauce, huh?

I don't cook it
for the regular Margherita.

- Uh-huh.
- What I do, I do the Neo-Margherita

and I cook down this sauce.
I cook it down for several hours.

- Okay.
- [Daniele] So I...

I end up with a pulp
that I just sprinkle on the pizza.

We should do that one.

- Whatever you like.
- Okay.

Maybe... It would be nice to do
a regular Margherita and a Neo one.

[Daniele] That's good.

This is the bottom.

But, right now, for pizza,
it's the reverse.

I want the bottom down.

- [Jon] You want it to rise.
- [Daniele] Yeah.

We just push all the air in the crust.

Just stretch it a little bit.

Four-point-eight seconds.

Well, now I'm losing time, but it's okay.

This one is here.

Yeah, who's measuring time?

- Now? One...
- [Daniele] Yes.

He wants you with the phone.
He doesn't want you just counting.

He doesn't want the...

- I don't want the fake one.
- [Roy] You don't want the fake count.

That's like me, "How long
am I holding my breath underwater, Dad?"

Okay. [laughs]

Ready, set, go.

It's done.

- [Jon] Eleven seconds.
- [Roy] Five-point-six.

No, 5.6.

And you took a long time
to hit it with your thumb, too.

So I give him five.

So, Jon, I'm going to make these two and
I'm going to make you do the Pignatiello.

- The Sunday gravy one.
- Okay.

- It's close to your heart.
- For Grandma.

- For Grandma Joan.
- [Daniele] Right?

All right, get the clock.
Can I do it here or...

Set it by the hour?

- [Roy] Right, here we go.
- [laughs]

By the hour!

Do you have an hourglass?

- [Roy laughs] An hourglass!
- Ready?

I won't go fast. I'm gonna do it right.

Yeah, do it right.

- All right.
- Don't time me. [laughs]

[laughing]

You actually know the drill.

There you go. That's the Jersey boy there.

[laughs]

Robert Rodriguez taught me this.

[Daniele laughs]

[Jon] I forgot
which side was up or down though.

I can tell.

- [Jon] You can tell?
- [Daniele] Yeah.

- [Jon] Is that the top or the bottom?
- [Daniele] This is the top.

[Jon] Fifty-fifty chance.

All right.

We're going to do
a Margherita with cheese.

Just a regular...

sauce-based pizza.

Basil.

And the cheese.

[Jon] You have a new appreciation for this
now that you're a pizzaiolo also.

[Roy] I'm not a pizzaiolo.

I do bowling-alley pizza.

[laughing]

- You make people happy?
- [Roy] Yes.

- That's the most important thing.
- [Roy] That's all I cook for.

I'm at a stage now in life
where I just cook to make people happy.

I just started, but I still want to
make people happy when they come here.

[Jon] So you don't...

[Daniele] I don't put sauce
on the Neo-Margherita.

Basically, we recreate
the same thing on the Margherita,

- but we boost the flavor a little bit.
- [Jon] Yeah.

- Yeah.
- [Daniele] This one is the cooked sauce.

It's just a pulp, reduced down a lot.

- This is his Kogi taco.
- Yes.

Yeah. That's what it is.

- [Jon] What does "Pizzana" mean?
- "Pizzana" means pizza from Naples.

It's pizza-na.

And "na" means from Naples?

"Na" means from Naples.

You know, in the '80s,
there were the plates of the car.

There was "NA" on each plate
when the car comes from Naples.

So from Rome, it was "Rome."

We took that side and put it on the pizza,
so...

This is done.

I put it on the rack to cool down,
because the steam has to go underneath.

[Roy] Beautiful.

Beautiful.

Wow.

- [Daniele] See it?
- [Jon] Yeah.

- It's empty.
- [Jon] That's because you flipped it over?

Yeah. Inside is not going to be
full like the bread.

- Just going to finish with...
- [Jon] You drizzle it with oil?

- Yeah.
- [Roy] Wow, that looks good.

So we're going to do the Neo-Margherita.

[Jon] This will make you lose the skin
on the inside of your gums.

[Daniele] Yeah.

We finish with the...

So you get basil in each bite.

That's nice.

That's side by side.

The past, the future, side by side.

Just fold it like a good New York guy.

[laughs]

There you go.

[Jon] Mm!

Mm.

- So light.
- [Roy] Yeah.

- [Jon] This is light.
- [Daniele] Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Now you're going to taste
what I mean about Margherita.

Empty.

- That cheese is so...
- Deeper. Deeper flavor, yeah?

That's good.
I've never tasted anything like that.

[Daniele] It's the same ingredients
of a Margherita pizza.

Just, you know... what you crave about it.

You know, when you eat a taco
and you research what you want?

One day, I was eating a Margherita and was
pissed off that there wasn't enough basil.

- [Jon] Uh-huh.
- I said, "I'll solve that problem."

If you don't get the bite with the leaf,
you don't have the basil.

No.

So now you're ready for your Sunday gravy?

- [Roy] Yeah.
- Uh-huh.

Now he's showing off.

[Daniele] So what we're going to do
is the Sunday gravy.

This is the sauce.

Cooked seven hours. See, there's
some shreds off the short ribs inside.

- [Roy] Yeah. It's like a machaca.
- [Daniele] Yeah.

[Jon] And that's
the same tomato sauce except...

- Always the same tomato.
- Cooked down with the meat.

[Daniele] Cooked longer.

Each time you cook it, it's going to get
a different flavor from it.

This one's going to hit harder.

[chuckles] This one... I don't know.

It's not going to be that heavy.
Don't worry. No.

- Because the pizza is not overly dressed.
- [Jon] That's true.

- [Daniele] It's always...
- It's not wet. The bottom's not wet.

And you say a lot of that's
from the cheese, too?

From the cheese and from the way that we
preserve the bottom of the pizza crispy.

Because when you put a pizza
on a flat surface,

it doesn't ever escape, the steam, so...

- We'll take the short ribs...
- [Roy] Take the jus?

- [Daniele] And...
- [Jon] Deep fry them?

What's this one, short rib?

- Yeah.
- That's like Roy's pizza.

[chuckles]

[Jon] You're in Roy Choi territory now.

Well, you know, we are not that different.

- Yeah.
- Yes.

A little bit of Parmigiano.

This one is going to taste like childhood.

You're giving my grandmother
a lot of credit.

- [Daniele] You see the bottom is cooked.
- [Jon] Yes.

So what I do, I just...

- [Jon] Levitate it.
- [Daniele] Yeah.

I don't like to lift it up to the dome
too much.

- Otherwise...
- Because it's too hot or too smoky?

[Daniele] All the fumes
will be attached to the pizza.

It won't be good for you,
on the healthier side.

It's like with Aaron Franklin.

It's all about...

[Roy] Adjusting and mastering
the heat, basically.

- I'm starting to feel it.
- Yeah. This is it.

I lost five pounds recently.
Now I just gained it back.

[Daniele] We're going to finish
with a little bit of Parmigiano crema.

The Parmigiano that we have in the house,
we just do a cream out of it.

And fresh basil, just for color.

[Roy] Nice.

- This one's a little more dangerous, huh?
- Mm-hmm.

- Wow.
- [Roy] Mm.

- Like a bowl of pasta, but on a pizza.
- [Daniele] On a pizza.

That's the difference
between traditional pizza,

which is the Margherita,

and what I'm trying to do at Pizzana,
you know.

I'm trying to get
a little bit more on the explorative side

with toppings and flavors.

I mean, pizza doesn't have to stop
like that. You can still have fun.

- [Jon] It's excellent.
- [Roy] It's good.

This is very telling about you,

because, usually when you go to an Italian
restaurant, it's the whole boot of Italy,

but you seem to have zoomed in
just on Naples.

Yes.

Well, that's where my family's from,
you know.

- [Jon] Yeah.
- I'm a third-generation bread-maker,

so that's where everything started.

And then we moved from Naples
to the countryside,

which is in Caserta.
Caserta is a town close to Naples.

By the mista salad.

- [laughing]
- [Roy] Yeah, it's there.

Yeah, by the mista. You know, my house
is by the cavoletto and the mista.

Over here. Just right up there.

Why the pizza from Naples again?
It was a...

From the old days, it was a bread, right?

The history where everybody goes...
runs with it

is that a guy named Raffaele Esposito,

a long time ago, decided to make
this homage to the Queen Margherita.

- The story...
- [Jon] The three colors?

The three colors of the Italian flag.

And when we eat pizza here,
it's a stepchild of the Margherita pizza.

- [Daniele] Well...
- In Rome, it's totally different.

In Rome, it's a square and it comes in...
Similar to what you do.

That's what inspired me,

because I came back from Rome and, when
we were doing pizzas, I was trying to...

I knew I couldn't do Neapolitan pizza.

I don't have the oven.
I don't have the training.

And I just started to think,
and then the Rome pizza...

I ate it, like, every day
when I was there.

- That was the beginning of the creativity.
- It's delicious.

[Jon] The other thing is your meatballs.

My grandmother, even though she was
born here, her family's from Naples.

Those traditions of the smaller meatball,
it's because she's from this region also?

- Is it different from different places?
- It's different.

When you go up north,
there's a different way to look at food.

You know, a lot of New York
and New Jersey, all this stuff,

because the first immigrants
were from the south,

all the food that you know as Italian,
really strong, comes from that region.

That's my idea.
I don't know if it's for certain, but...

There's some things on this menu
that are strictly traditional

and there's other stuff
that are a little bit my take.

This is my pizza, you know.

It's not because I don't like
Neapolitan pizza. I think it's delicious.

But there is a certain point in your life
that you want to do your own thing.

You know, you don't want to do
what everybody already does.

I just want to tell my story.

[Jon] You work every day,
both lunch and dinner, seven days a week.

[Daniele] Yeah. It's easy for me,
because finally I work for myself.

Basically, it's the American dream.

[Roy] In restaurant life, there's really
no before work or after work.

You're always working,

but it's not like
you don't see your family,

because your family's involved.

Everything is just one continuous motion.