Apizza Scholls
About our pizza………
Pizza’s origin is of much debate. Some claim that the Romans created the earliest version of what we know as pizza today. Some claim that the Greeks invented pizza & brought their new creation to Italy. Whomever may be right, there is no denying that the birthplace of the most commonly known version of pizza in the United States & around the world was Naples, Italy, where tomato & cheese found their way onto the flatbread that had previously been dressed with simple herbs, olive oil & salt.
In the late 19th century, Italian immigrants brought their pizza recipes to the United States & the earliest American pizzeria was founded in New York by Gennaro Lombardi in 1905. Lombardi looked at the art of making pizzas as a craft & adhered to the pizzaiolo standards created in Italy. Pizzaiolos are craftsmen whom have dedicated their life to the perfection of pizza. Over the years, many of the old school pizzaiolos in New York & beyond retired &/or sold their shops. With their departure, the craft of the pizzaiolo was fading, being replaced by chain pizzerias & minimum wage pizza assembly lines.
Our mission is to keep the craft of the pizzaiolo alive & to hopefully inspire others to do the same. We adhere to the principles of any great pizzaiolo whom laid the ground work before us; to make it our life long quest to the perfection of pizza, to never take shortcuts & to make the pizza the way that it has been for hundreds of years….in other words to make the best pizza we can. The most important factors in making a great pizza are proper dough fermentation, oven management & the freshest, highest quality ingredients available.
Our Dough
Our dough is made from only four ingredients; flour, water, salt & yeast & is mixed completely by hand. The process of fermenting the dough takes over 24 hours at room temperature, with a minimum amount of yeast. This slow fermentation will produce acidity in the final dough, which gives the product a creamy flavor and also gives the crust a complexity in the texture, ranging from crackly & flakey to soft & chewy. Our dough is made daily & is never frozen. Some days we may simply run out of dough …there is nothing we can do about that. Some days we may have leftover dough at the end of the night which is tossed out or made into croutons for our salads….
Oven Management
The best pizzas are baked in extremely hot ovens ranging from 650º F – 900ºF. This extreme heat allows the crust to spring & become flaky & crisp, while also allowing the cheese & tomato to cook quickly. Due to the extreme temperatures the crust will take on a charred appearance. This is the sign of a pizza baked in a hot oven & should not be thought of as burnt. Although the spots on the crust may be black, the quick baking produces a superficial char, which does not taste bitter, rather taking on a smoky & caramelized set of flavors …..yum!
Ingredients
We do not use any products that have been frozen, shredded or pre-sliced. We only use the highest quality cheeses, tomatoes, meats & other offerings we can find, mostly from Provvista Specialty Foods, Millennium Farms. We keep our pizzas as simple as possible in order for you to taste each of these special ingredients independently of one another. Too many ingredients will not allow the pizza to cook properly at these high temperatures.
Apizza Scholls
4741 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Portland, Oregon
503-233-1286
www.apizzascholls.com
Pizzaiolos – Brian Spangler, Dan Roberts & Jon Ullrich
