With pizza makers finally and firmly having wrestled the national consciousness about pizza away from cheap mega-chains like Domino's, Little Caesars, Papa John's and Pizza Hut, their pies have been released into a renaissance of artisanal styles — bar, cloud, Detroit, Roman, Sicilian — and unorthodox cultural mashups, including Argentine, Korean, Japanese and Swedish. That openness has created a welcoming culture. Yet pizza's association with fast food still impugns it among foodie snobs, to the point that no pizzeria in the United States — or on the planet — has a Michelin star, even though the prize has been given to a $1.50 noodle stall in Singapore, a cheap dim sum chain in Hong Kong, and a crab omelet street food shop in Bangkok.
The off-radar nature of pizza makers has given them stealth potency — if not for seismic change, then at least for visibility. It sounds, well, cheesy, but in Naples the menu at Sorbillo's, arguably the standard bearer of Neapolitan pizza, now offers a special pie — pink ricotta (blended with tomato), mozzarella fior di latte, extra virgin olive oil and fresh basil — in partnership with Barbie, which last year debuted a pizza-making doll. (Gino Sorbillo's young daughter, Ludovica, is an aspiring pizza maker.)
"Women can make progress in pizza that is harder in the macho restaurant world," said Kim, the Minneapolis pizza maker. "I love that because that world can be limiting. It has finite goals of money and awards. I prefer the infinite reach of intention and purpose. The most-popular item on my menu is a Korean barbecue pizza that, for some people, is their first taste of Korean food. It's all the things we say we want food to be."
Pizza-making also doesn't have fine dining's militaristic brigade setup — chef du cuisine, sous chef, saucier, pâtissier, etc. — or its penchant for bullying (and worse); it's far more collaborative and flexible, casual and supportive even at its upper echelons. Though its ethos is often far from feminist, pizza making can be a very feminine craft in the way that it doesn't cling to the rules of a male-dominated kitchen.
When Kelly opened her Colorado pizzeria in 2015, after earning a degree from Le Cordon Bleu, her father urged her to include her name in the title. He and her mother have run a local chain of bagel shops for decades, but they're widely seen as "his." He wanted better for his daughter.
At first, Kelly's kitchen was all men (and her). Now it's 50-50, and some days is all women. "I think of gender equality as craft, as rewarding balance," she said. "We've had men who haven't worked out because they don't want to listen to a woman, which I know because they'd listen if my husband told them the same thing I did."
Now some of these women are banding together — including Kelly, Meyer, and Russell — to make Women In Pizza a movement like Girls Who Code or White Coats Black Doctors. A formal alliance debuted in September: www.womeninpizza.com. And this year the World Pizza Champions, a kind of industry Justice League, increased its female members from 3 to 5 (out of 39 active members).
"Is it lame to say I do it just because it's fun?" said Tara Hattan, who said she is the only female pizza maker in her town of Broken Arrow, Okla. "Girls come just to see me do my pizza acrobatics. I get to be the inspiration or role model or just example I wish I had when I was younger. That's why I bring my ProDough everywhere, out to bars or parties. I want everyone to know women can do this, because they've seen so with their own eyes."
Women in pizza still have frustrations, of course, but flagrant sexism is abating. "Ugh," Meyer groaned in Naples last month, readjusting her trophy for a moment as an Italian television crew scampered over to interview her about her victory. "I'm going to have to wear my hair down."
Richard Morgan, a freelance writer in New York, is the author of Born in Bedlam, a memoir.
