A pizza with sage and roasted squash stars in a six-course pizza feast at Django’s Reinhardt Room.
Writer: Michael Morain
Photos: Duane Tinkey
Last summer, when George and Sheila Formaro were in Italy for their son’s wedding, they had dinner at a pizzeria in Caiazzo, a little town about an hour north of Naples. The place is called Pepe in Grani — “peppercorns” in English — and it’s famous, even in the heart of pizza country.
The meal started with a pizza. And then finished with eleven more. After the last bite, they hauled themselves upstairs to the guest house and drifted off to dreamland.
“I’m not sure what heaven looks like, but if it looks anything like that place in Caiazzo, well, I’m there for it,” George Formaro said a few weeks ago.
Now, he’s bringing a little slice of that heaven to Des Moines. The chef who helped dream up Centro, Malo and the South Union Bread Cafe is teaming up with Derek Eidson, his partner at Django, to offer an epic pizza feast at the end of April in Django’s private Reinhardt Room. They’re calling the new venture “Chef George’s Slice House” and billing the meal as “an exploration of pies, from pizza to pastry, inspired by more than a century of pizza history.”
There are “only” six pizzas this time, each in its own course, chosen from an initial wish list of a hundred-some options. The ones that made the final cut answered Formaro’s and Eidson’s simple, obsessive question: “What do I want to eat?”
Answer No. 1: roasted butternut squash, fried onions, bacon lardons, sage, fennel pollen and cheese on a thin crispy crust.
Answer No. 2: corn, cream with black pepper and pureed corn, pastrami, green onions and cheese on a hand-tossed sourdough crust. Formaro created the sourdough starter in 1989 and has maintained it ever since. “It’s my baby,” he said, “but it’s older than a couple of my children.”
Answer No. 3: Graziano sausage, pepperoni, tomato sauce with sweet ’nduja (a spreadable sausage that originated in Calabria), and cheese on a pastry-like crust ringed with crispy mozzarella frico.
We could go on. But let’s just skip to dessert: a peach pie inspired by Formaro’s Sicilian mother and an early American recipe for laminated crust that Formaro found in a British pastry book from the 1890s. (According to his best guess, he has about 20,000 cookbooks in his basement.)
At press time, the six-course dinner was almost sold out, but others are sure to follow. Formaro is a man with a mission.
“I’m going to fight till I die to make Des Moines a pizza destination,” he said. “Des Moines is one of the best pizza cities in the nation, certainly one of the most unnoticed. … I feel sorry for cities like Kansas City that don’t have a pizza culture.”
He mentioned the hand-tossed crusts from the coal-fired oven he introduced at Centro back in 2002. The thick rectangular Detroit-style pizza at Parlor. The deep dish at Felix & Oscar’s. Even the thin, crackery crusts he grew up with and always secretly loved, even when snobs compared them to cardboard. “I’ve had that exact same style in Rome,” he said. “Even in Chicago, the locals will tell you: Yeah, the tourists eat deep dish. We eat this.”
It’s the remarkable variety of pizza in Des Moines, like in Caiazzo, that appeals to him the most. He’s even come around on pineapple as a topping. “I no longer tell people they’ll need a note from their mother,” he joked. (Still, he draws a line at dessert pizza. “No,” he said. “Take the dough and fry it and make doughnuts out of it instead.”)
But for all his opinions, Formaro savors all the stories as much as the food itself. At any meal, he said, the people at the table and the conversation they share matter as much as what’s on the plate. “If it all works, you have something that’s truly magical.”
Every crust is a blank canvas
The theme of the first dinner at Chef George’s Slice House is pretty simple: pizzas the chefs want to eat. But George Formaro has no shortage of ideas for the future. If he’s awake, he’s probably thinking about pizza. (And if he’s asleep, he’s dreaming about it.) Here are just a few themes he’s considering …
Hollywood Hits: A dinner that riffs on classics like “Casablanca,” with the American-expat Rick’s Cafe in French-occupied Morocco, and “Pulp Fiction,” with its Hawaiian-influenced Big Kahuna Burger and ’50s-era restaurant Jack Rabbit Slim’s.
Des Moines History: The story of the city’s evolution, including early Italian immigrants on the south side and more recent newcomers all around town.
Personal History: The culinary collaboration of Formaro and Derek Eidson, his partner at Django. “It’s our whole journey,” Formaro said, mentioning the time they “were on a porchetta kick” and the eggplant dishes that remind him of his mom. “At different times in my life, I’ve been excited about different kinds of crust.”
Italian History: The whole grand saga, from ancient Rome to Marco Polo, the Venetian spice trade and the origins of modern pizza in Naples in the 18th century.
Football Smackdown: A menu inspired by the NFL playoffs, with pizzas topped with Green Bay Packers bratwurst, Chicago Bears giardiniera, Philadelphia Eagles cheesesteak and other sporty city specialities. “I can watch anything and get inspired by it,” Formaro said.
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