The Pizza Bible: The World's Favorite Pizza Styles, from Neapolitan, Deep-Dish, Wood-Fired, Sicilian, Calzones and Focaccia to New York, New Haven, Detroit, and More

The Pizza Bible is truly a masterpiece. I've been making pizzas going on 10 years now and have learned mainly by trial and error and being methodical. If this book had existed 10 years ago, it would have shaved at least a few years off my learning curve. I own hundreds of cookbooks, and generally speaking, the signal-to-noise ratio is really high. Not the case in this book. The Pizza Bible is written in a very approachable, likable style, but is just brimming with useful information. The typical pizza recipe, whether it's found in a cookbook or on the Internet, involves a packet of yeast and punching down a ball of dough after it's doubled in size. Sure you'll get a pizza if you follow a recipe like that, but it's nowhere even close to what high quality artisanal pizza is about. The Pizza Bible, on the other hand, offers step-by-step instructions on several regional styles of pizza in painstaking detail. If you make a pizza using one of the recipes in a cookbook, it'll be more involved than your average pizza recipe. But, that's why you'll end up with a better pizza. There are several things I love about this book. I won't cover them all, but I'll talk about a few of them: 1. The Pizza Bible covers the *why* part very well. When you're asked to do something, it's always followed by a very clear explanation of why something should be done a certain way. 2. The Pizza Bible uses gram-based, weight measurements. Baking is a very precise craft. Volume-based measurements are a bad idea with baking. Most cookbooks don't use weight measurements. When you see a recipe that asks you to use a cup of flour, you should be skeptical. 3. The Pizza Bible is all about the details. While I'm an amateur, I've made pizza thousands of times (for serious). The biggest takeaway is that every single step matters. This book really captures the essence of this point. Most dough contains 4-6 ingredients, but there's an infinite number of ways to prepare it. The steps matter and The Pizza Bible doesn't overlook that fact. 4. The Pizza Bible covers many regional styles. There's dozens of styles of pizza that exist. While not everyone is included in the book, most of the notable styles are. Having grown up on the East coast and been fortunate enough to travel to many parts of the country, I've tried many styles of pizza in the US. The Pizza Bible does nails it when it comes to covering each style. My favorites are the Detroit, Jersey, and New Haven style. Ok... so far I've been very bullish about the Pizza Bible and have only covered the pros. No review would be complete without a counterpoint. If I were to play devil's advocate, here's what I'd say: 1. Some of the ingredients aren't going to be readily available on the shelf at your Supermarket. That said, the book is very thorough about offering sources and accessible alternatives. 2. I've read through all of the Amazon reviews (as of the time of writing this) and have noticed some gripes about this not being suitable for a home cook / quick pizza night. To me, this is a matter of setting expectations properly. Good pizza takes time. There's no way around it. Disclaimer: While I've purchased this book with my very own money (It should show as a verified Amazon purchase), I am affiliated with The Pizza Bible companion site. That said, I have no financial stake in this book and truly believe 100% of everything I've written.

I've been making pizza for about 20 years, with pretty good success (at least, that's what my family and guests have told me). Recently, I bought Ken Forkish's "The Elements of Pizza" in the hopes of taking my pizza skills to a new level. Shortly after, I bumped into "The Pizza Bible," and bought that too. I learned a lot from both this and the Forkish book, but this one is my hands-down favorite of the two. Gemignani tells you in the clearest fashion, WHY he does things the way he does them. That gives you a deeper understanding of what you are doing, helps you figure out precisely what he's telling you to do, and gives you the confidence to experiment with shortcuts or other modifications. This stands in sharp contrast to Forkish, who often tells you what to do but not why, and when the instructions are less than transparent (e.g., Forkish's description of how to ball the dough), it's impossible to figure out what he means. Another major contrast between Gemignani's book and Forkish's book is that Gemignani is very efficient - he doesn't repeat himself much. He gives you lots of details in the "Master Class" section of the book, and subsequently he gives briefer instructions, on the assumption that you learned something from executing the class. In contrast, Forkish is highly redundant, repeating many of the instructions in every recipe. You could probably distill Forkish's book into one that is half as long. Gemignani provides a comprehensive tour of many different pizza styles, with a couple of recipes for each style. So, why do I say, don't make this your first book? The problem here is that Gemignani is a craftsman, and he wants every reader to be a craftsman. (His motto is, "Respect the Craft.") That means pizza doughs that take 3-5 days to concoct, and having not one pizza stone, but two, and having both a large and small-volume digital scale. And it's true, all this craftsmanship does make for a better pizza. But even without a single digital scale, and with only one stone, and using a recipe with a dough rise-time of only a couple of hours, you can still make a pizza that will be competitive with most national chain high-quality pizzerias, and will simply whip the pants off a low-quality chain like Pizza Hut. Yes, your pizzas may sometimes be shaped a like Australia (or worse, Africa), and in a side-by-side taste test your 2-hour dough won't be as good as a 3-day dough, but they will still be great. Also, there are a lot of great pizza topping possibilities that involve only a few ingredients, yet you might not think of yourself. A beginner will benefit from a book that provides a lot of suggestions (like red onion, potato, pancetta, and fontina!). The recipes here - while terrific - are extremely esoteric, complex, and often reference obscure artisan brands, which will be either tough to obtain, or it will be impossible to know what would be an appropriate substitute. Start with a book like Evan Kleiman's "Angeli Caffe Pizza Pasta Panini" (out of print, but still available, last time I checked), which gives you a simple dough and a lot of recipes. Fall in love with making your own pizza, then graduate to this book.

Just about the best basic home designed pizza book with history, photos, common sense stuff about pizza. Tony is a great guy, been emailing occasionally with him, he's brand building responsive and loves the craft.

The tatoo on his hands says it all....respect the craft. The man is dedicated, talented, intelligent, passionate, thorough, logical, and insanely knowledgable about making the best pizza possible no matter what style you choose. He and his team have put together a classic presentation of excellent photos, researched recipes, and simple but thorough explanations representing his view of how to make excellent pizzas that will stand the test of time. He admits the recipes are biased by his opinion but gives more than adequate reasoning about why that is. Each style also has an historical perspective as to how it came to be and why it is so different and uniquie. Each section and its individual recipe is like an illustrated and annotated PHD degree course. He also gives a comprehensive list of his favorite suppliers for all materials and ingredients used to make each of the 20 styles of pizzas he covers. Tony also teaches the craft in San Francisco to others and the first seciton of the book is some of the actual course materials he uses. His method is very simple and he insists you read the first 19 pages of the book and understand them first before even touching an ingredient. Then he thoroughly explains all the ingredients and the differences between them, particularly flours. Then, and only then, can you actually start the process of making a dough , preparing, and finishing a pizza like the masters of the craft do. No shortcuts for this exacting process here. Pizza is a uinversal food in concept but differs in execution by region and origin. No matter what style you like, this book will teach you how and why to make it like the many listed experts he consulted in executing this book. Thin and foldable or deep dish style lovers will never agree but they can still learn proper technique, ingredient selecton, and excellance in "respecting the craft" thanks to 11 time World Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani, his editors and co-authors.

Book is great, love the step by step instructions although can be a little vague about some of the terms , but is a learning process so no big deal. Best book Ive owned on how to make pizza. I should have bought the hard cover book , I purchased the spiral bound book thinking it was better quality , after only 3 days it's starting to tear the cover of the book. We will see how bad it gets with the cover.

I wish I bought this sooner. I watched endless YouTube tutorials on making dough and it was never quite right. The first time I made the Neapolitan dough using this book’s recipe, it was perfect. Not sticky or heavy and perfectly stretchy.

In case you never took an interest in any aspect of the pizza business for the last couple of decades, Tony Gemigniani is THE MAN. He has created a successful collection of pizza restaurants over about 20 years, he has been involved in developing commercial pizza ovens and methods, singlehandedly created and dominated dough spinning competitions and if all that wasn't enough, he went to Italy and bested every pizza maker in the world (the first time the Italians were beaten) in making authentic Pizza Napoletana. There is nobody else whose veins carry as much pizza sauce as Tony. This is the one pizza book that covers just about every variety of pizza out there, which toppings go on which style pizza, and even crafting the ingredients. Included are methods and recipes for NY-style thin crust, midwest cracker crust, Chicago-style deep dish, Napoletana-style, Sicilian, focaccia, grilled, rolled, and stuffed pizzas. There is even a cast iron skillet pizza. This 300 page book dares to dive into all of the regional variations of pizza in both the US and Italy. The breadth is pretty amazing. In addition to pizza crafting there are recipes and methods for a wide variety of doughs (including pre-fermented and sourdough), sauces, mozzarella, cheese blends; hell, he even gets into sausage making and a bunch of ways to stretch dough. The book is peppered throughout with tips, special ingredients, and methods that Tony has developed and discovered over his decades of commercial and personal expertise. I have been making pretty good pizza at home for years, so I waffled on buying this book. Now that I have it, I am sure it will end up dog-eared and covered in 00 flour and tomato sauce. The photography will get you drooling like Pavlov's dog. This is a reference book with a soul for home pizzaiolos. Great job Tony.

Master Class chapter in pizza making is brilliant!

Dużo metod, przepisów i sposobów robienia pizzy

Very well detailed recipes and honest tips. One of the best books about pizza!

E' in bel libro (scritto in inglese), ti dà molte ricette e ti spiega anche il perchè usa quel tipo di farina e quel tipo di pomodoro. Giustamente, è una bibbia di un singolo prodotto. Mi aspettavo questo tipo di minuziosità!

Excelente libro!

You want perfect pizza? You need this book