Growing up in Brooklyn, what did you come to expect in a pizza? Which pizzerias were some of your biggest influences?

Anthony: Pizza was always sunshine on a paper plate in Brooklyn. There’s nothing like that anywhere else. When I started to travel, I learned that this beautiful art form is so indigenous to our area of the world that most people outside New York really can’t understand our obsession with it. I was so lucky to be raised in Brooklyn, and have this at my fingertips. What I came to expect was this delicious product that I could find at any corner in New York.

Being raised in Bay Ridge, I had mainstays like Pizza Wagon and Spumoni Gardens always right there. Then, as you start to get out of the neighborhood, you find heaven on Avenue J. Without a doubt, the single greatest influence on me was Dom Dimarco at DiFara Pizza. Once you eat at DiFara Pizza, it truly changes your life. He and his family are such beautiful people. I’ve had many a conversation with him and his daughter Maggie – they were so helpful in answering any questions that I had. I could never thank them properly for the time that they gave me. I’m also a huge fan of John's of Bleeker St, Lucali’s, Paulie Gee’s, Roberta’s, and F&F Pizza. They’ve all played a part in shaping the pizza that I make today.

We’re all pizza nerds here; tell us about your from scratch dough-making process?

Anthony: We are all nerds aren’t we when it comes to this. I learned to make pizza in Naples, Italy, without a dough machine. That hasn’t changed in the eight years we’ve been open. All of the dough is still made by hand, no machines. We only make so many dough balls per day, so, when it’s sold out, the day is finished. The process starts the day before service and it’s based on time and temperature. We start out with a very small quantity of Italian brewer’s yeast, and allow the dough to rise slowly; I mean slowly – over a 24-hour period. The optimum temperature is around 74 degrees. We do several folds throughout the day to incorporate air into the dough to bring it to life. It’s a painstaking procedure, but we find it produces an incredibly light and crispy dough in the end. I would never change the way I do this.

Another big factor is the water in Hot Springs, Arkansas. As long as humans have been recording their travels to Hot Springs, they have talked about the healing properties in the natural hot springs. You may have heard of Mountain Valley Water…they are our neighbor just up Central Avenue. Our water here is incredibly pure and rich with minerals. That gives our pizza a distinctive taste that you cannot replicate anywhere else in the world.

Why do you think that pizza does so much to bring a community together? How has that played out for you in Hot Springs?

Anthony: Pizza is such a casual, comforting food, it lends itself well to people putting at ease. Pizza is something everyone knows and grew up on in some form or fashion. It makes conversations much easier to be had. Over the past eight years, I’ve gotten to know people in precisely this way in my shop. Whether you grew up like me in pizza heavens like Brooklyn or Naples, or in Hot Springs, you had some sort of pizza. I’ve had a fun time bringing my pizza, what I like to call Arkansas brick oven pizza, to Hot Springs and be a part of the community through something so simple and delicious. We’ve had a great time in the shop.

You’ve received a ton of accolades for your pizza (South’s Best Pizza from Southern Living Magazine, finalist for Arkansas’s 2021 food hall of fame, Food & Wine’s top pizzeria in Arkansas). Which of your pies is your favorite?

Anthony: I live in a city of 36,000 people. I could have never envisioned that this little six table restaurant, started by someone who had absolutely no experience cooking, would be looked at the way it is today. It’s incredibly humbling. My favorite pie is The Sidetown with sausage. It’s made with our house-made mozzarella and some whole milk mozzarella topped with parmigiana reggiano and our own made-in-house sausage. There are some days that I wish that I lived in New York so I could walk to Lioni’s or Faicco’s and get the products I love. We don’t have any of those kinds of stores here, so we have to make everything ourselves.

We first got to know you this year with the virtual NYC Pizza Fest. What are some other community and fundraising projects you’re particularly proud of?

Anthony: The two that stand out the most out of all the work that we do, I would say, are No Kid Hungry and Shop with a Sheriff. I was asked to be a No Kid Hungry Chef by my friend and fellow chef Matt Bell. It was such a great event and we raised a record amount of money for the program in Little Rock. The project that is closest to my heart is the one my friend Ben Briggs started seven years ago – Shop with a Sheriff. We raise money for foster children’s homes in Hot Springs, the sheriffs take the kids to shop, and then we close the restaurant down to throw the kids a huge Christmas pizza party. I haven’t been able to get through one dry-eyed yet. It’s an incredible event and it’s scheduled for the 19 of December this year.