Pizza Today - August 2021 - 10

CONVERSATION
RUTHIE
PERRETTI &
ERIC KAPLAN
Ruthie's BBQ & Pizza
Montclair, New Jersey
Concept:
Ruthie: Eric has a pretty stellar career
from New York. He graduated CIA.
The thing that stuck out to me when
we first started talking about this idea,
he said, 'I want to do simple food and
I want to do it well.' He really wanted
to do BBQ because of the music
connection. We found this location in
my hometown. And it had a pizza oven
in it. Eric said, 'Well I can do pizza,
too. Why not?' We started thinking
about it. Well, that's a great idea for
a restaurant, BBQ and pizza, two of
America's favorite foods.
Pizza:
Eric: I like it to look more rustic
but not trendy. I didn't want a
million toppings. I wanted basics like
tomatoes, sauce and cheese. Since
we do BBQ, having a smoked cheese
would be a no brainer. We make our
own sausage, and we smoke sausage.
I didn't want to mix BBQ and pizza.
Never shall the two meet, except
when I have smoked mozzarella and I
do a smoked sausage with it, but it still
has marinara. (Previously) I worked
with this woman in New York City at
her restaurant. Her name was Evelyn
Sloman. She's actually the one that
taught me to make pizza. I basically
adapted her dough recipe, the way she
made it. But I have a blend of different
flours with our own wheat flour (the
couple harvests on their nearby farm)
that I have incorporated into it. All the
ingredients we use for toppings, we
make. We don't used canned stuff. We
roast mushrooms. We roast eggplant.
We make garlic confit. I cook down
onions. I call them BBQ onions.
10 / PIZZATODAY.COM / AUGUST 2021
How did adding your own wheat that you
harvest impact the dough?
Eric: I worked it out so it didn't. I added
more than I thought that it could handle at
first to see what that was like, and I was like
that's going to be too much. I don't want it to
be too health foodie and not crispy. So, I had
to work it out to the ratio where it would not
change it too much, but I would still be able to
get the same crispiness and texture. I would
add as much of it as I could before I thought
it changed the texture and ruin it. Pure whole
wheat is just too heavy and dense.
As a blues music venue, why BYOB?
Eric: The town allows it. We don't have to
get any special permit and it's supposed to be
just beer and wine.
Ruthie: In Montclair, there are very few
liquor licenses so they are very deliberate in
this town not to have an abundance of liquor
license. At the age we were when we did this,
we want to close early. I don't want to be
running a bar. And we live upstairs.
Where do you see the restaurant looking
forward?
Eric: I'd like to get the wheat thing and local
product off the ground here and see where that
takes us. I'd also like Ruthie's...I don't want to
expand that business or franchise or anything
like that, I just want to grow it and maintain it;
and possibly do something out here (on their
farm) with the mill, the flour and that business
and see where that goes.
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Pizza Today - August 2021

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