Chris Bianco opens up: "The truth is, I could make a lot more money, but I couldn't do anything more satisfying. In that sense, I'm the richest man I know."
The story
Many American chefs would consider winning a James Beard Award as a defining moment in their careers. Not Chris Bianco. It's not that he disdains the accolade, a honor bestowed on very few of his peers; none of his fellow pizzaiolos have ever won one. In fact, the normally loquacious Bianco was left almost speechless when he was named Best Chef Southwest at the May 5 Beard Awards in New York.
However, the essence of his work is to prepare excellent food with the best ingredients; he doesn't care about recognition. "It's great to be respected by your peers, but I won't hang the award on the restaurant walls," Bianco recently confessed to pizzamerketplace.com, co-owner of Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix. "You have your 15 minutes of fame in this life, but what happens in the restaurant every night matters more. It's what you owe to the customer." On the other hand, the restaurant, located in the historic Heritage Square Park of Phoenix, has been a success since its debut in 1993; in 2000 it received a remarkable 29 out of 30 rating from the Zagat Dining Guide, a surprising feat for upscale dining establishments and almost "otherworldly" for a pizzeria. People are even willing to wait in line for 2 hours to get a table on the weekend, as Yelp's app attests.
But ask Bianco about these achievements, and almost always you'll get this response: "It's not just about me. It's the people who work here or who grow the food we use." Bianco, 41, worked in a pizzeria for the first time when he was 13. A native of the Bronx, he grew up thinking he knew everything there was to know about pizza until his parents took the family to Naples, Italy. "I ordered a Napoli pizza thinking it would be fantastic, but it was just a small disk with a little sauce and some seafood on top." Then he got curious. "I saw that this wasn't sliced pizza, and I wanted to find out what it was. I wanted to know why they made it this way." From there, Bianco dived headfirst into the study of food, and as he climbed the ranks to become a chef, he realized he wanted to follow his passion: making pizza. He moved to Phoenix in 1985, then worked as a chef in Italy and Santa Fe. Finally, he returned to Phoenix in 1993 and opened Pizzeria Bianco with his business partner - then and now - Susan Pool, until they moved to the current location in 1996. Today, Pizzeria Bianco offers a menu with pizza, pasta, and salads at competitive prices, but the quality is top-notch.
The walls are adorned with simple artwork, and the tables are minimalistic as well. Yet, according to Michele Scicolone (pronounced "shecolonee"), the food is anything but ordinary. A cookbook author, Scicolone visited Pizzeria Bianco at the behest of friends who told her it was the best pizza they had ever eaten. "My husband and I are New Yorkers, and we didn’t think that you could find great pizza in Phoenix. But after checking it out, we couldn't believe it... I don't think anyone makes pizza as well as Chris." Scicolone said two things make Bianco's food superb: great ingredients and the fact that they're handled by a passionate chef. "He's a man who focuses on one thing, while others easily get distracted and try to do it all. They try to win awards, but Chris doesn't care about that. His only concern is making great pizza." Bianco admits this dedication sometimes takes away from profits.
"I always tell people that two things I never worry about are the cost of food and labor, and they think I'm crazy. Just find good people and pay them well, and everything will be fine. It's worked for me; I have more or less the same staff since I opened." Although Bianco is often asked about franchising Pizzeria Bianco, his answer is always the same: "Thanks, but no thanks." He believes the world doesn't need 30 Pizzeria Biancos; additional restaurants would only dilute a concept whose key elements, food and atmosphere, cannot be replicated. "Opening this place was like breathing for me. It's natural. It's not something I want to turn into a business."
What the world needs, he added, are more restaurants run by mature chefs with the ability to bring their culinary vision to life with the best available ingredients. For Bianco, that means sourcing local foods first. "We use custom-grown tomatoes and make our own mozzarella," he explains. "Every day, we seek out good food, go to local farmers' markets, and find fantastic things. We have to alter them as little as possible when we cook them." Bianco stated that the best chefs - including some Beard Award winners among his colleagues - have an insatiable desire to know everything about the food they prepare, including who grows the vegetables and how, as well as what the chickens and livestock are fed and how they are butchered.
They also seek to know the history of food by studying the origins of different dishes to understand why those ingredients are cooked the way they are. Chefs with such knowledge of food can then reinterpret a dish as they see fit, even if it's not in the way a food critic might perceive it as authentic. Although he won't be opening another Pizzeria Bianco, Bianco is opening an artisanal bakery called Pane Bianco. The new project, he said, is a result of his love for baking, not a desire for more money or fame. Support from partner Susan Pool and brother Marco Bianco, who works at the pizzeria, has allowed him to venture into this new endeavor. "The truth is, I could make a lot more money, but I couldn't do anything more satisfying. In that sense, I'm the richest man I know," he concludes.
Cover photo: @Andrew Toth, Getty Images
