Holy Crap: Chris Bianco Confirms Plans to Bring Pizzeria Bianco to LA

Award-winning pizza maestro Chris Bianco is set on bringing an outlet of his famous Pizzeria Bianco to Los Angeles sometime in the near future. The move should come as little true surprise given Bianco’s plans to help out Tartine lead Chad Robertson with a big new project at Downtown’s ROW DTLA space, but this still marks the first time the Phoenix-based chef has mentioned the expansion publicly.

For those who don’t know, Chris Bianco is widely regarded as one of the best pure pizza-makers in America. For years the New York City native would make every single pie at his first Pizzeria Bianco location in Phoenix, before the rigors of the hours spent kneading dough and standing next to all that smoke began to take their toll.

Bianco has since scaled into four Arizona locations and into the canned tomato business with growers here in California, so it should be an easy transition to bring a new outlet of Pizzeria Bianco to Los Angeles.

In a wide-ranging interview with the LA Times, Bianco talks about his upcoming cookbook, his love of all things pizza, and the local projects he already has in the works. Then there’s this nugget:

And I think we will have one Pizzeria Bianco here; that’s my goal. I want to take everything that I’ve done, and not replicate it, but see what I’d have done differently.

Pressing further, Bianco says that he wants to work with everyone from Robertson to farmers to grain-growers to cheesemakers on his new LA projects. For years Bianco has been an advocate for the freshest, best ingredients at his Phoenix restaurants, and he often resorted to shipping stuff direct from California anyway. Now there will be almost no middlemen.

As for a Pizzeria Bianco timeline, so far the chef isn’t saying. His Tartine projects are coming along quickly though, with an opening slated to happen before the end of the year.

• Tartine Partners With Chris Bianco on Massive New Projects in Downtown LA [ELA]