A pizza spends two days as dough and four minutes in the oven. Those four minutes decide everything.
Stand at the pass of any Slice Mode kitchen at eight on a Friday night and you will see the same thing: one person stretching, one person topping and one person at the oven who never looks away from it. We call that person the oven hand, and it is the hardest job in the kitchen.
Why stone
Our ovens have a thick stone floor that is heated to around 400 degrees. When a raw pizza lands on it, the stone pushes heat straight into the base. Water in the dough turns to steam almost at once and inflates the rim. This is what bakers call oven spring, and it is why the edge of a good pizza is full of big, uneven bubbles. A metal tray in a cooler oven cannot do this; it bakes the dough slowly and dries it out before it can puff.
The four minutes
In the first minute the base sets and the rim rises. In the second, the cheese melts and the sauce starts to bubble. At this point the oven hand slides a peel under the pizza and turns it, because the back of the oven is hotter than the front. In the third and fourth minutes the crust colours. The dark spots on the rim, which some people call leopard spotting, are the sugars from our 48-hour fermentation caramelising. They are flavour, not burning.
Reading a pizza
There is no timer. The oven hand watches the colour of the rim, the way the cheese moves and the sound of the base on the stone. A pizza with wet toppings such as Veggie Overdrive needs a few seconds longer. A thin crust needs a few seconds less. A Cheese Burst needs a cooler spot so the centre melts before the edge darkens.
Deep dish is a different game
Our deep dish pizzas do not go on the stone. They bake in seasoned steel pans at a lower heat for 25 minutes, so the tall crust cooks through and the cheese melts without scorching. The pans are never washed with soap; like a good tawa, they get better with use.
From oven to box
A pizza starts losing quality the moment it leaves the oven. Ours is cut, boxed and handed to a rider within about a minute. The box has vents so steam escapes and the crust stays crisp, and it travels in an insulated bag.
What you can do
When it arrives, open the lid for a few seconds before you eat. Then start with the rim. That is where you taste the oven.
