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Hi,
A few years ago I saw a video of Anthony Mangieri, a New York based pizzeria owner.
It’s shot 16 years ago from a small, modest space with only 2 other staff who run the entire operation with him.
He speaks obsessively about making pizza, obstinately enforcing traditional Italian methods, often to his own huge inconvenience. He had to smash half his walls down just to crane the wood-bake pizza oven in that he sourced from Naples.
Two days ago, I stumbled across a new video about him, filmed just last year.
At the age of 53, he’s now been making pizza for 38 years (yes, since 15 years old).
Despite working from a larger, more refined restaurant, and winning Best Pizzeria in the World and numerous other accolades, the goal is still the same; to make really good pizza.
Pizza is the organising idea around which he practices his craft. It’s at once both insanely simple, but extremely nuanced and full of depth in the details. Even the menu only has 4 options.
The flour, the oven, the buffalo mozzarella, the worktop; all the basic components have had decades of experimentation, refining, and practice.
The actual pizza is 1% of what the work involves; he thrives in the process itself.
Making pizza the way we do it is such a fleeting moment of happiness and perfection. And the more you do it, the more you're aware of all the imperfections in it. And so there's this constant, like, the next shot is going to be maybe the one that's like going to make me feel like, "Woo, we did it." - Mangieri
Anthony sees pizza through a different lens than most of us do.
What strikes me is if pizza can be pursued so meaningfully, then almost anything can.
You don’t need a rarified job, you need a rarefied approach to your work. - Cal Newport
Videos for reference:
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