News

Caputo Cup winner grateful pizza biz is recognized as the 'art' it is

November 16, 2017

In the pie-shaped world of pizza, the Caputo Cup is the No. 1 slice, and this year a tiny restaurant in Bainbridge Island, Washington, claimed its place in this longest-running pizza competition on the planet.

According to a news release, That's A Some Pizza owner-operator Will Grant and assistant manager Allen Raymond took first prize among 40 entrants in the nontraditional category with Grant's gorgonzola vegetarian pizza topped with pine nuts, feta cheese, mushrooms and red onions over a gorgonzola sauce might be of-the-moment, but the crust has been around awhile. .

Raymond also claimed second prize in the traditional category of the competition with the restaurant's pepperoni and onion pizza.

Both pizzas feature a sourdough crust that uses a 120-year old starter — the oldest in commercial use in the Pacific Northwest. According to Grant, the sourdough starter dates back to the Alaskan Yukon exploration days, when the "better-with-time" dough base was perfect for the rough-and-tumble environment of the far North. 

"Back in (the late 1800s), explorers to the Yukon had to have enough food to last at least a year. Sourdough starter was perfect for that. You feed it and it keeps going," Grant said in the release.

The starter came to That's A Some Pizza by way of one of the restaurant's founders who started the restaurant with Grant's parents 1980s. Grant, was almost literally born into the pizza restaurateur's profession, and started working at That's A Some Pizza at the age of eight. He was trained at the International School of Pizza in San Francisco where he became a certified pizzaiolo, and he now runs the 500-square-foot restaurant on Bainbridge Island.

"I wasn't expecting much [at The Caputo Cup competition] because it was my first time," Grant said. "Pizzas would go behind the curtain where the judges were and then come out with a few pieces left. Mine [the gorgonzola vegetarian] went behind the curtain and didn't come back out. I thought, 'Oh no. What does that mean?'"

It meant first prize for Grant, who is something of a cheerleader for the pizza industry and its current direction.

"There's an art to making pizza that hasn't, until recently, been appreciated by many outside the industry. There's a heart and soul that goes into it," said Grant. "For me, pizza has always been about culture — the culture of the dough and the culture of the business. It's never been about money, but rather, about taking care of the culture and making the pizza and the business the best I can. That's my family's legacy."