Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

[mgraban]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

What's the latest opening date for Southlake?

[jjerrier]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

We are actually going to open this week believe it or not! We've hired everyone, passed health inspection, fire inspection and city inspection should be final tomorrow. A couple of days of training then a quiet opening for this weekend. We've had a couple of pizzamakers in from Italy helping to train...they are from Bari which drives our GM Maurizio (Neapolitan) nuts. I watched them training the guys to make dough today and they put oil in! I about fainted. I told them no oil when we open Southlake. I fired the ovens the other day and had some Caputo VPN dough I had made at home...it was awesome. The commercial oven works SO much better than my home oven which I suspect was never insulated properly.

At any rate - a few pics attached...one of the first pizzas (prosciutto and rucola, the ovens, and the hand laid mosaic tiles). We had Italians come in and lay tile EVERYWHERE. I am going to take pics and video tomorrow and will try to get them posted.

If in Dallas...come see us!

Jay

[jjerrier]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

Mark - I just checked back in on your blog. Our pizza ovens in southlake have rotating floors. They are pretty cool...we still build a fire in the center, then shove it to the left to the offset firebox and feed if from there once the oven is up to temp. The pizzas I made I did not rotate - but I'll report on that as soon as I get them fully cured. The nice thing is that they really hold their temp over night. When you come in to Southlake I will give you the nickel tour.

Jay

[RCLake]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

Congratulations on your pending opening. Next time visiting my daughter in Dallas we'll stop by. My wife and daughter enjoyed your place on Mckinney. Is Southlake BYOB as well?

[jjerrier]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

No BYOB in Southlake...we couldn't afford it if we couldn't sell alcohol! We'll have a very reasonable wine list and some awesome beers. Blue Moon on tap!

[mgraban]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

Jay - I think I'll bring my wife and in-laws this weekend!

Can't wait to see it!

I'll email you about setting up the nickel tour sometime.

Would love to have you stop by and see our home oven in Keller when you have time.

Mark

[mgraban]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

Mark - I just checked back in on your blog. Our pizza ovens in southlake have rotating floors. They are pretty cool...we still build a fire in the center, then shove it to the left to the offset firebox and feed if from there once the oven is up to temp. The pizzas I made I did not rotate - but I'll report on that as soon as I get them fully cured. The nice thing is that they really hold their temp over night. When you come in to Southlake I will give you the nickel tour.

Jay

OK, an offset firebox -- that makes a bit more sense then (I wondered how the fire would rotate!!)

[jjerrier]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

An iPhone pic of a few pizzas cooking tonight. We have a Father/Son team from Bari in training the staff to make pizza. It was just practice dough so it didn't have a long enough rise...but it still was not bad. I think they are making it more of a Roman style - little/no cornicone and too crackery for my liking. I made a few for them and they were both yelling "napoletana, napoletana" - pointing at my cornicone and the way I made them on the table and pulled them on the peel...pretty funny.

Jay

[Inishta]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

Hi Jay.........looks like you have a pretty serious fire going whilst cooking. What temps are you at when working?

[mgraban]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

An iPhone pic of a few pizzas cooking tonight. We have a Father/Son team from Bari in training the staff to make pizza. It was just practice dough so it didn't have a long enough rise...but it still was not bad. I think they are making it more of a Roman style - little/no cornicone and too crackery for my liking. I made a few for them and they were both yelling "napoletana, napoletana" - pointing at my cornicone and the way I made them on the table and pulled them on the peel...pretty funny.

Jay

Interesting stuff -- so should we come in tonight (Saturday) or give it another week or two... you are letting paying customers in, right?

[jjerrier]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

Mark - give me a couple more days. I will shoot you an email when we do friends and families - but it will be this coming week. We will definitely be open to the public by next Thu-Fri. If you are in town square during the week, poke your head in as I will most likely be there playing with the ovens.

On the other question - the flames are coming out from the offset firebox...the oven actually was not all that hot...maybe 225 celsius. We were still testing things our.

[mgraban]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

Mark - give me a couple more days. I will shoot you an email when we do friends and families - but it will be this coming week. We will definitely be open to the public by next Thu-Fri. If you are in town square during the week, poke your head in as I will most likely be there playing with the ovens.

Ok, sure, we'll wait then.

I'm working in town with a client and my drive home brings me right past the town center, so I'll pop in to see if I can find you. Thanks!!

[jjerrier]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

Hi All...we've been slowly tweaking the pizzas at our new restaurant - and we've had a LOT of what I (and Mark Graban) would consider sub-par results. Dallas is a funny place in that people like to say they want "authentic", but they really like the Americanized version of the real deal. As I am learning - "sell to the masses, not the classes". I believe we'll have a happy medium with both Americanized Neapolitan pizza and real Neapolitan pizza.

Today was the first day I was happy with pizzas that came out at lunch...a couple of pics attached. The trick now is to get consistent...

Jay

[RCLake]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

So are you now open? If a restaurant is going thru growing pains, I'm not sure what to expect - waiting to learn thought. Next time I'm visiting my kids in Dallas we stop on over. Good Luck

[jjerrier]

Re: Campania Pizza - Dallas and Southlake

So we've been open about 2 weeks and things are going pretty well. The weekends are nuts and we're building a steady crowd during the week. I've made a couple of batches of fresh mozzarella too.

It is very interesting about "selling to the masses, not to the classes". While we have lots of great traditional Italian combinations...our top pizzas are pepperoni and plain cheese! The guys in the kitchen are making more of a Neapolitan-American hybrid pizza. We don't get any complaints about the pizza, but, my personal opinion, is that pizza snobs (like me) would rather have the real deal Neapolitan. Whenver I eat, I always make my own!

We got some good press this week in the local media...

Southlake, Texas - Our Great City Directory

If anyone is in the area - let me know so I can personally make your pizzas...

Jay

PS - there is NO oil in the dough...hooray!