Anthony Mangieri of Una Pizza Napoletana Talks Pizza Pizza

Anthony Mangieri started his journey in 1996 with Una Pizza Napoletana. He had a bread bakery in New Jersey for a few years and then opened his pizzeria in New York. After a successful run there he took his pizza operation to San Francisco. He has now moved back to New York.

His family is from Naples. He lived with his grandmother which fostered his love of pizza. While growing up in New Jersey, he made the trek to New York for pizza. He would go to John’s, Totonno’s and Grimaldi’s. These pizzerias started his original love for pizza. Then he fell in love with authentic Neapolitan pizza from Naples.

For his pizza, he does not use commercial yeast. Anthony’s dough is naturally leavened. The dough is never refrigerated. When he started he hand mixed all of his dough, but he now uses a spiral mixer. He does occasionally mix the dough by hand to keep the technique.

Pizza Philosophy

His philosophy about pizza has been to make only enough dough for a certain amount of pizza. When the dough runs out the pizzeria would close. When Una Pizzeria Napoletana was in New York, he kept to a much stricter schedule of how he would make his dough. When he moved to California he began to experiment a bit. He experimented with texture, timing, hydration, and flour.

He does a pre-ferment with his dough. Anthony has a starter that he refreshes every 24 hours. The dough is mixed firm, not as firm as a biga. He will mix this with a final dough. This dough will sit no longer than 24 hours. The dough is a type of sour dough, but not in taste.

Anthony shares the following tips:

• Mix your dough as wet as you can. If you mix your dough really wet you naturally will not over work it
• Use a minimal amount of yeast