I saw an extraordinary thing at Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. Dan Richer of Razza, considered by some as the best pizzeria in the nation, was at the Ooni ovens booth demonstrating their new Halo Pro spiral mixer. It was arguably a glimpse at unbridled joy in the making of pizza dough.

 
I know that a lot of people, newbies especially, approach pizza dough with trepidation. Some even regard dough as the enemy. Perhaps the requirement to knead dough gets the relationship off on the wrong foot. The idea of having to force water and flour to cooperate could be perceived as a kind of conflicted relationship fraught with animosity. I’ve said it before. Saying it again: pizza dough is your friend. And watching Dan Richer in action was an object lesson in feeling the joy that anyone making pizza could take to heart.

We’ll be talking about the Ooni Halo in a later post. It’s one of those products that upends many ideas you may have about industrial design. (It’s a sexy beast.) Watching Dan Richer use it, however, upends many other ideas you may have about the idea that making pizza dough is drudgery.

In Dan Richer’s book, The Joy Of Pizza: Everything You Need To Know, he presents a very exacting methodology that might make you wonder why he’s not working in a laboratory somewhere. And maybe, in a way, he is. The kitchen is his lab and he’s serious about it. That has served him well in building the Razza empire. If you’ll indulge me, I’m going to plagiarize myself here. Back during the 2024 year-end holidays, I recommended half a dozen different books one could give as gifts for the cooks in their life. One of those books was Mr. Richer’s. I wrote, in part:

“If you think the idea of using a kitchen scale to weigh your ingredients is crazy, you’re going to find Dan Richer to be totally mad. This joyful book is about the serious work of pizza. Mr. Richer appears to be a driven man. He approaches pizza in ways that might seem extreme. He follows rigid rubrics, practices intent naming, develops relationships with everyone who supplies his ingredients, and measures each pizza emerging from his oven with a pair of calipers.”

After finally seeing the man in the flesh, performing the dough-making side of things, I wouldn’t change a word of that analysis. I would add only this exhortation: read his book. He’s quite a guy, and his work is both aspirational and inspiring.

I admit that I first listened to the book on Audible and it seemed very serious. (And yes, it’s ironic and perhaps weird to listen to a pizza cookbook during sessions on a treadmill at the gym.) What didn’t come across in the audio was the experience of handling that book, seeing the photos of him making pizza with his children, and witnessing the artistry not only of his pizza in action, but seeing it in a cookbook clearly intended as a valentine to the art, science and love of the craft.