Anthony Falco, the acclaimed pizza consultant and author of Pizza Czar: Recipes and Know-How from a World-Traveling Pizza Chef, has shaped dough across five continents. Known for his work at Brooklyn’s Roberta’s and for helping launch pizza concepts in cities from Mexico City to Mumbai, Falco is as much a cultural observer as he is a chef. In this wide-ranging conversation, he reflects on his Sicilian roots, the art of flour, the surprising cities redefining pizza, and what he hopes to leave behind.
Roots + Inspiration
Can you take us back to the beginning—what first drew you into the world of pizza?
I had always loved pizza. I was a picky eater when I was a kid, but I loved all kinds of pizza. It never occurred to me to make it professionally but in 2008 I was working a few different jobs in Brooklyn when the opportunity to make pizza came up. It was a new restaurant about to open called Roberta’s. I started learning pizza there on the job, but the thing that really drew me in and that made me want to make pizza full time was the wood fired oven. There was something magical about cooking with a wood oven that I became obsessed with.
Did food play a big role in your upbringing? What are some of your earliest food memories?
Yeah it did for a few reasons; I was raised vegetarian and didn’t eat any meat, eggs or seafood until I was 26, so food was a minefield for me, but it also kept me away from most fast food or processed food. It meant lots of home cooked meals, and foods from different cultures: Indian, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Mexican, but also featured lots of home cooked Italian American meals. It was definitely different for a kid growing up in the middle of Texas. My earliest food memories are of food my great grandmother made, at my grandmother and grandfather’s house - lots of Sunday sauce or sugo as she called it, homemade bread, Sicilian cookies, Sicilian grandma pizza, cacuzza, eggplant parmigiana, ditalini pasta, fava, these are very early memories.
Tell us a little about your Italian heritage—do you know where your family is from in Italy?
My dad’s side of the family is all from one town in Sicily called Poggioreale. It’s in the Trapani province, and it lies inland about halfway on the road from Palermo to Sciacca. Many residents from that town emigrated from Sicily to Texas via New Orleans, settling in Louisiana and Houston like my great-grandparents, grandparents, and father, and some farmed the land along the Brazos River Valley.
Have your travels through Italy influenced how you see or make pizza today?
Absolutely, I think I have always studied regional Italian ingredients and dishes and how they could translate into pizza, but traveling around you get to see how one dish with the same ingredients can be given a different soul or interpretation by each chef who makes it; the subtle changes of simple combinations while staying true to a timeless dish. But also, I’m greatly inspired by the new chefs taking risks, doing non-traditional things. For example, the pizza scene in Rome, there is a real freedom to experiment and try new things within old formats like the various Roman pizza styles.
If you could cook a meal with one of your ancestors, who would it be and what would you make?
I would like to cook with my great-grandmother Lena. I would like to make pasta and some vegetables from her garden with her, and talk and give her a hug again.
Names + Milestones
What inspired the name Pizza Czar—did you come up with it or was it given to you?
Well, the name was given to me, and it’s honestly not my favorite, but it’s a title that represented a time when I was juggling the responsibility of running a pizza kitchen, a mobile pizza operation, and a frozen pizza company, so I guess it fit. Then it kind of stuck and when it came time to name the book, the publishers chose it over my choice, “Anthony Falco’s Handbook for International Pizza Making for Your Home and Business Needs” - so I guess they had a point.
What was the most surprising part of writing the book?
How you can have like 10 people proofread it and still end up with so many errors and mistakes.
Is there a chapter or story in Pizza Czar that feels especially personal to you?
I think the chapter, “Goodbye Roberta’s Hello World” because it was a very dark time for me to have to leave something I loved so much and put so much work into, for something completely unknown, but the fact that I was writing about it for my own cookbook meant I was on the right path.
How did your time at Roberta’s shape your career and philosophy on pizza?
I think I learned to be open to collaboration, to pursue perfection but know it’s never going to happen and to embrace the chaos. And to always be learning.
Looking back, what advice would you give to your younger self just starting out in the pizza business?
I would say to just follow your own path, make things you want to eat, never try to appease the market, if you wake up everyday to make something you believe in that lines up with your own taste and your own values you can never be a failure, you will only win every day.
Flavors + Places
You’ve consulted all over the world—what country surprised you most when it came to pizza culture?
In the year 2025, you can find pizza pretty much anywhere on planet earth, and I know; I have made pizza in Mongolia and Guyana, and I wasn’t the first to do so, even there. But I think a culture implies something more—a deeply embedded passed down tradition, and those are still few and far between in the world. Within that context I would say Ahmedabad, India had one of the most surprising cultures. There is a really unique and different style of pizza there that has existed for over 50 years, starting with a place called Jasuben pizza. People from the Gujarati diaspora told me how they would have relatives bring it to them in the states, or how it would be the first thing they ate when they went back to see relatives.
What’s the most unexpected topping you’ve ever tried on a pizza…and loved?
Rome has some of the most unexpected and far-out pizza toppings. At Pizzarium Bonci they do a funghi e cresta di gallo, which is sautéed mushroom and cockscomb (crest or comb of a rooster). The mushroom and cockscomb look very similar once cooked and the flavors are just great on Bonci’s fantastic dough.
When you're not making pizza, what’s your go-to comfort food?
100% Mexican food. Growing up in Texas, Mexican food and culture is just woven into everything. Sopa de Elote in the summer, tacos for breakfast, and fresh flour tortillas. Specifically Tex Mex and Northern Mexican food is super nostalgic and comforting to me.
Do you have a favorite regional pizza style—Neapolitan, Sicilian, Roman, New York, etc.—or is that like picking a favorite child?
I think a good thin and crispy east coast style pizza, whether it’s New York, New Haven, or Trenton just really always hits the spot for me. A cheese pizza, with a balance between the sauce and cheese and a little char on the crust will always be my ideal pizza.
What’s one pizza myth you’d love to bust for good?
That you need 00 flour to make great pizza, or that it is special really in any way. Don’t get me wrong, there can be some good 00 flours but for me and most of the pizzerias I love in Italy and elsewhere, it’s just too white and too soft. I want some character in my flour, I want to see the wheat, so 0 or 1 or 2 or the non Italian equivalent of those flour milling standards with a high quality wheat is what really makes a great dough in my opinion. High extraction flour is the way to go for me.
Global Projects + Current Obsessions
What have you been working on over the last few months? Any new openings or international projects we should know about?
I’m really proud of the work I did with Daphne and her team on Pizza Americano in Tai Pei. Baxter Street Pizza in Piedras Negras, Mexico with my wonderful clients Sophia and Sabina. Mike Wible and his team at DeMarco’s in Greenville, South Carolina are absolutely crushing it, I only see that place getting better and better. Aditi and Aditya in Mumbai are world class operators and it was an honor to work with them on Twenty Seven Bakehouse Pizza. That’s really just the last few months!
What’s Next
Is there a dream pizza city you haven’t worked in yet, but would love to?
Currently my number one pizza dream city to work in is Tokyo. it’s such a dynamic city and its pizza scene has become world class. I am waiting for the call on that one.
Any plans for a follow-up book—or something completely different?
Yes I’m working on two different ideas, one more history of food and ingredients and cultures and the other is more about general Italian-American cuisine and how it’s spread around the world. Still early on though.
What do you hope your legacy in the pizza world will be?
I think there is still so much I want to do, so there might be a pizza third act where I settle into my very own style of pizza making, I have visions of it, and hopefully my sons are involved. But I just hope to leave the pizza world and food world better than I found it by pushing for better ingredients and supporting small family owned producers.
Follow Anthony here to keep up to date on his pizza adventures.
