Pizza Talk: Anthony Mangieri, Una Pizza Napoletana with the “Chopin of Pizza”

A few years ago we featured a series of webisodes on Pizza Quest.com with Anthony Mangieri, the legendary pizzaiolo and founder of Una Pizza Napoletana (UPN for short) when it was located in San Francisco. You can revisit those videos by starting here, where I dubbed him “the Chopin of pizza.” (You’ll have to watch the video to know why I call him that.) Anthony is a no-compromise kind of guy, who believes that if anything is worth doing then you should do it as perfectly as possible, and at the highest level of execution. Anyone who has had his pizzas, now relocated back in NYC (where UPN originally launched about 20 years ago) and also at a new second location in Anthony’s childhood turf in New Jersey, knows about his uncompromising drive. We recently caught up with him as he was in the midst of pivoting the business and reinventing himself, like so many others, to survive this Covid era. In this interview we get to see the new operation and get a glimpse into Anthony’s thought process for the choices he makes in every facet of the business, and to learn more about what drives him and his vision, not only for pizza but for a life lived fully. Enjoy the ride!