20 years later, this pizzeria is still one of Brooklyn’s finest
For over 40 years, Michael Ayoub has been in the kitchen. And for much of that tenured duration, his hands have been kneading, rolling and serving up his favorite dish: pizza. When he started Fornino back in 2004, he took on the Neapolitan pie with an eye for New Yorkers, creating a pizza that has the noted chew of the Italian version but with a crust sturdy enough to withstand our love of takeout. And as our pizza scene has grown to welcome newcomers, Fornino has stood the test of time, marking its 20th year in business. We spoke with Ayoub about his stretch in the industry, the science of pizza and how he is celebrating this milestone with some of his favorite hits (and how you can, too).
At your first restaurant, Skaffles, you cooked grilled pizzas. At Cucina, you focused on Chicago-style pie. When approaching Fornino, what made you want to focus on Neapolitan pies?
I wanted to do something where I thought, at the time, hadn’t been done before in New York. I wanted it to be different from the Neapolitan [pizza]. Neapolitan pizzas have a much higher hydration, and it’s a much wetter dough. Many people go to Naples and say, ‘Wow, that pizza was so soft, it was so soupy, it wasn’t cooked.’ I wanted to do something in between, because in New York, we deliver pizza, we eat pizza at home, to go and stuff like that. Neapolitan pizza does not fit that bill, because if you put a true Neapolitan pizza in a box, it becomes a wet napkin.
The tagline of Fornino is “The Art and Science of Pizza.” What is the story behind the tag?
You think, pizza, it’s easy. It was the hardest thing I ever did to create a menu with just one product. You have one product, and it has to be damn good, otherwise, you’re never going to be not going to do anything. That base dough is your whole product. I realized how deep I was going into this black hole of science—what type of protein counts, how much hydration, how much fermentation. I was making pizza before, but not to this level, right? I realized how deep it was going, and that’s where it came up.
Your menu breaks down pizzas by generations: Naples, Italy and Fornino. Can you tell us why you chose to frame the menu in this way?
The Italian government won’t recognize certain things, they have a controlled denomination of origin. They only recognize margarita, marinara and a margarita extra, which is no tomato sauce, only tomatoes. They allow fior di latte, but before it had to be buffalo mozzarella. The second generation is the regions of Italy and all their specialties. Then the third generation is moi and what the crew and I have come up with in all kinds of different combinations.
You also incorporate herbs and vegetables grown fresh from your home garden for specialty pies. When did you start gardening for the restaurant?
I’ve been gardening since I was a kid. We actually had a greenhouse in the first Fornino. But the reality is, it was too small to produce enough of anything. I still grow for the restaurant, I bring in some specialty items. I grow anywhere from 50 varieties of tomatoes. I start off with about 400 plants that I give away. I supply a small farm in Long Island. Anybody that’s ever met me, I’ll give you a tomato plant.
I hope that you save some of these vegetables for yourself.
We can enough tomatoes for the whole year. I haven’t bought a canned tomato in years. The tomato that you get in the store is just, sorry to say, it’s garbage. They grow it so that it can withstand shipping. It’s never picked red. It’s just gassed at the last minute to give it some color. I could get very long-winded about how I feel about supermarket tomatoes.
This year marks 20 years in business. Does it feel like 20 years have passed by?
It went fast, 20 years is a good chunk of your life. But I love what I do. When you open up a restaurant, you’ve got this idea and you hope that everybody likes it. Unfortunately, nine out of 10 people don’t get that opportunity to see it the first year. And to have 20 years go by, it’s not something that I’ve ever sat on my laurels. I’ve always been involved. Being in any kind of business, you have to go with the flow. But I have an expression. You build a restaurant, it’s like seeing the phoenix rise. That’s the rewarding part of being in the restaurant business.
On October 22, you are throwing a 20 year anniversary party and serving up some of your greatest hits. What kind of pizzas can guests expect?
We are going to have 22 pizzas on the menu. We’re gonna run through them and throw in a couple of specials.
Coming up this month, the Fornino location in Time Out Market is hosting a pizza making class. What can participants expect to walk away with?
So when you take one of my pizza classes, we will talk to you about the dough, fermentation and putting it together. You’re going to walk away with some general knowledge and you leave with the pizza that you’ve made. Whether you’re four years old or 40, it’s a lot of fun.