Pizza schmo to pizza pro

8 hours, 3 experts and 500 pounds of dough aims to transform our writer from Papa John to Dominic DeMarco

I’ve had the best pizza this city has to offer: DiFara’s, Grimaldi’s, Totonno’s. And I’ve had the pizza that I make in my own kitchen. To put it charitably, my pizza shouldn’t even be classified in the same food group with these legendary New York pies.

In the end, some combination of ineptitude and bad luck always seems to rain on my pizza-making parade. Whether it’s sticky dough that refuses to roll out or a limp middle-section drowning in watery toppings, I most certainly do not have the magic touch. But I live in the pizza capital of America, steps away from the best pizza pros—why not seek the sage advice of the city’s finest? Could three pizza masters from the Institute of Culinary Education, Otto Enoteca and Pizzeria and Brooklyn’s Lucali turn this pizza schmo into a pizza pro? By Jeremy Cesarec, Photos: Melissa Hom