Pizza Today - July 2024 - 38

RISING
STARS
OF THE
PIZZA
INDUSTRY
Thomas Gian Ardito
Age: 35
Title: CEO
Pizzeria name: Brooklyn DOP
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Instagram handle: @brooklyndop
PT: We hear you began as a popup.
Tell us about that experience?
TA: As a gym owner during the
pandemic, I essentially had three
choices after we were forced to go into
remote training (which cut revenue into
one-fourth of what it had previously
been): pay myself, pay my landlord, or
pay my employees. I chose to pay my
employees. After all, they were with me
from the beginning and stuck with me
through the pandemic. But I then had to
figure out how I would pay my own bills.
I always had been baking bread at home
and was very much into the science of
dough and used to even make pizza
from 2004-2008 when I was 18-22. I
had been experimenting since 2017
on applying bread techniques to pizza
and discovered that basically this is
what all the bleeding-edge places were
doing, more or less, as well. In April
2020, I started putting pies for sale on
my personal Instagram after constantly
sharing pics of my experiments for
months. It went from 12 pizzas on Friday
from 5-9 p.m., to over 35 from 11 a.m.-9
p.m. Brooklyn DOP was born on 19th
Street in Brooklyn and I had to upgrade
my home oven with a custom made,
½-inch thick, 85-pound steel plate to
adequately retain the heat to go pie
after pie.
My cumpa, and now partner, Jason
D'Amelio - who is also a passionate
home cook and Financial Advisor
by trade - decided he could use
a pandemic distraction and joined
me. We sat people on the porch and
served wine, blasted Italian Hip Hop or
Freestyle and expressed ourselves as
people. I discovered something that
really allowed me to be myself, connect
with my roots and become an artistic
expression while satisfying the scientific
aspect that I always crave.
PT: What made you want to
enter the pizza realm in Brooklyn,
where there is no shortage of
iconic pizzerias?
TA: I think a unique selling
proposition is something every business
needs. And, in Brooklyn, one would think
pizza is not so unique. The proposition
here becomes quality, reason,
dedication and connecting people
to what they love or remember about
pizza. I always strove to make pizza as
good as the pizza people remembered
as kids. We remember things in an ideal
way, and the strongest characteristics
stick out in our minds.
The challenge becomes bringing
those things into the present, and
topping what we remember them as.
The melty cheese and crispy, pleasantly
chewy crust that crackles under your
teeth ... a bright tomato sauce with
enough tang and sweetness to make you
crave the next bite... I am confident I can
compete based on that. Making pizza
the old-fashioned way, with your heart
and mind, with intention, that is the
Unique Selling Proposition for us. In
Brooklyn, to be successful however, this
is par for the course.
READ FULL
INTERVIEW
at
Photo: Thomas Gian Ardito
38 / PIZZATODAY.COM / JULY 2024
PIZZATODAY.COM
http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM
Pizza Today - July 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pizza Today - July 2024
