First woman to win Pizza Maker of the Year: Meet Giorgia Caporuscio

Talking about your pizza preferences can be a topic of debate for some. Pizza pride gets personal, it can get political, and it can be downright polarizing. like when pineapple enters the conversation. And yet, many of us will agree that it is one of our favorite dishes, especially when we are with friends. Thick dough, thin dough, fermented dough, wood oven, brick oven, sauce or no sauce, the choices are endless. Sometimes, it is better to have the professionals step in and give us a little help. Well, the chatter can be calmed since the leaders 50 best pizzas—the motherland’s pizza doctors—recently crowned Giorgia Caporuscio Pizza machine 2024, pizzaiolaof the year.

Sure, such a title is a reward for anyone who plays with spreads, but for a woman to win the award when there are usually so few people in the room is a historic milestone. After nearly 15 years in the country, partly working alongside her father in his New York restaurants, Caporuscio won the award this year, which is shattering the ceiling—or dare we say, pizza ovens—for women everywhere.

The awards were announced this summer, but the grand-stage ceremony took place Sept. 10 in Naples, Italy. “I am so happy and so surprised, even though I have worked for so many years — physically, mentally, 14 hours a day — for this moment,” Caporuscio said in an interview at his restaurant Don Antonio before the international ceremony.

A few years ago, Caporuscio became one of the original founding members of Women in Pizza to make room for what she’s recognized for: she and the other members support each other in their efforts to occupy a revered place in pizza cuisine, from restaurants and festivals to major competitions. Caporuscio’s recognition and the existence of organizations like Women in Pizza are helping to completely rewrite the world of pizza.

Caporuscio not only won the prestigious pizzaiola award of the year, but his restaurant Don Antonio, in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York, was named number 7 in the United States And World number 30.

“Giorgia is the jewel of New York’s Italian and Italian-American culinary community,” said Andrew Cotto, a longtime journalist, author and editor of Appetite“She is appreciated for her passion, her talent and her boundless energy. It is wonderful to see that she is recognized for her true worth among us.” Cotto also met with Caporuscio for a question and answer session. Appetite, its one-year publication that covers everything Italian.

Caporuscio’s approach to making her pizzas is also a departure from the norm. You won’t see her or her team tossing dough in the air. Instead, she believes in a gentler method, one she explained to Pix 11’s Marysol Castro and Alex Lee this summer that feels more like “her yoga,” which she says contributes to the light and airy pies they produce at Don Antonio. She demonstrated on the show how the move incorporates gentle pressure and rotation, very different from the aerial rotations we’ve all come to expect from the pizza-making process.

Don Antonio Restaurant opened in 2012 and has become a destination for fried pizza, fried pizza, for years. They offer seven different models fried pizza in addition to 45 types of Neapolitan pizzas, all subjected to a 48-hour fermentation. Each pizza is quickly immersed in the fryer, as zeppole—before adding the toppings, then finish for a minute in the wood-fired oven to evaporate any remaining oil, leaving a light, crispy exterior and a deeply satisfying, soft center. Caporuscio’s signature is the The Montanarawhich includes tomato sauce, smoked buffalo mozzarella and basil.-

The apple never falls far from the tree. Caporuscio’s father, Roberto, who opened Don Antonio and co-owns Kesté Pizza e Vino in Manhattan’s Financial District, has also won accolades for his Neapolitan pizza. Also president of the Pizza Academy Foundation, Italy’s elite organization that teaches the 300-year-old art of Neapolitan pizza-making, maestro Caporuscio teaches classes at his restaurant and certifies that authentic procedures are followed.

The cherry on the cake for Caporuscio is that she also won a special recognition Women Empowerment – Fedegroup Award for being an inspiration to female pizza makers around the world, another honor awarded at the 50 Top Pizza World 2024 ceremony in Naples on September 10.

And there’s even more to celebrate. Caporuscio is expecting her second child with her husband, Matteo, who also works at the restaurant, which just reopened on September 17 after two weeks of renovations. Plus, she’s gearing up for a guest chef appearance at Harvard’s famed Food Science Lab on September 30, where she’ll explain everything from her ingredient selection and technique to fermentation.

National Pizza Month is just around the corner, and National Pizza Day is just around the corner on February 9, but many people agree that every bite of pizza is something to celebrate.