Pizza Czar

April 23, 2021

International pizza consultant Falco shares what he learned while working at New York's famous Roberta's and helping restaurants worldwide develop unique pizzas. Intended for home cooks who aren't pizza purists, the book includes recipes for Neapolitan-style, pan pizza, and white pies, with a wide array of increasingly popular toppings (like toasted walnuts, lime pickled onions, or fingerling potatoes). Like Marc Vetri's Mastering Pizza, this collection exalts the crust and encourages natural leavening. But oddly, Falco buries natural fermentation information at the end of the book, even though the first dough recipe requires a starter--a baking term not found in the book's index or table of contents. Some of the graphics are unappetizing (like photos of partially eaten pizza, or drawings of skeletons and an anatomically incorrect cow). Though recipes are printed clearly, some of the interstitial text is harder to read, due to colored inks or psychedelic backgrounds. Falco's recipes include ingredient measurements as well as easily scalable baker's percentages, but some recipes yield as much as seven balls of dough, without any tips on freezing or alternative uses. VERDICT Not recommended. Readers might peruse this volume for topping ideas, but Michael Schwartz's Genuine Pizza is easier to use and more practical, with additional building block recipes. --Bonnie Poquette, Milwaukee

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