| Friday, May 7, 12:00 noon
Members $70, guests $80
When Chris Bianco’s name was announced last May as the winner
of our Best Chef: Southwest award, it puzzled those unfamiliar with
Pizzeria Bianco. A pizzeria getting a prestigious James Beard award?!
What’s next? A hot dog stand?
Not so fast. The restaurant is a pizzeria with “haute cuisine
attitude,” as Peter Reinhart, a Beard award winner himself,
wrote in American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza, in
which an entire chapter is devoted to Bianco. And Bianco is a chef’s
chef, a craftsman of the old school, who has devoted his life to
pizza perfection. “Pizza is my metaphor,” he told Reinhart.
“When someone comes into my restaurant and eats my pizza,
I want them to experience my soul.”
Bianco’s own drive for perfection is credited with spurring
local residents to demand better, more seasonal ingredients and
with stimulating local purveyors to provide them. In the ten years
since Pizzeria Bianco opened, Arizonans have become accustomed to
heirloom tomatoes, fresh herbs, and Tucson pistachios. All are showcased
in the pies, alongside meaty sausages made by a local butcher, and
Bianco’s creamy, tangy, luscious, housemade mozzarella.
If a pizzeria winning a Beard Award didn’t seem puzzling
enough, what’s a New Yorker to make of the fact that Phoenix,
Arizona, Phoenix, of all places?, is credited with “perfect,
I mean perfect,” (per Reinhart) pizza. Turns out that
although Pizzeria Bianco has become what Bon Appétit
called a “Phoenix landmark,” Bianco himself is, in fact,
Bronx born and bred, and he was slinging dough all over New York
City from the age of 13. He moved west and opened his first Pizzeria
Bianco inside a specialty market, then closed it to go to the source
and to learn about pizza in Italy. He returned to open—with
fiancée Susan Poole—the current incarnation of Pizzeria
Bianco, with its adjoining wine bar, Bar Bianco, and sandwich shop,
Pane Bianco. The restaurant has been featured in Gourmet,
Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, and USA Today,
and has topped “best of” lists in local publications
for many years running.
PS. You may have noticed that Bianco is not serving pizza at the
Beard House, but instead is showcasing some of his other cooking,
using carefully selected seasonal ingredients. It is a testament
to his integrity that, without his signature wood-fired oven, there
will be no pizza.
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