Razza<\/a>, is actually across the river in Jersey City, New Jersey. He doesn\u2019t point to the pizza cookbook that will be published this fall, or the five times he\u2019s been a semifinalist in the James Beard Awards, the Oscars of the restaurant business.<\/p>\nInstead, Richer traces his intense passion for cooking to the moment he ate ricotta gnocchi with tomato sauce. \u201cThese light, feathery pillows,\u201d cooked by a college friend who often cut class to watch the Food Network, bore no resemblance to Richer\u2019s previous experience with the dish. \u201cHow have I never tasted this before?\u201d he wondered.<\/p>\n
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Eventually, this experience made Richer decide to visit Italy, where his cousin was studying, and where he ate two more revelatory plates of gnocchi, one in Tuscany and one just outside Naples. \u201cI had eaten gnocchi with tomato sauce before, but the tomato sauce was so different than anything I had tasted and the gnocchi were like pillows, and I wanted to know why. And it was that curiosity that led me to return from the trip and start cooking. I started cooking batches of tomato sauce for my family. And then I started going to farmer\u2019s markets, and talking to farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2012, Richer opened Razza, a wood-fired pizzeria that turns out beautifully blistered, meticulously constructed pies. Richer and his staff submit every ingredient to endless rounds of blind taste tests: this includes the flour, the tomatoes, the pepperoni made in Vermont, the fresh cream Richer uses to make his famous cultured butter, and of course, the cheeses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a very curious person,\u201d says Richer, gesturing to the latest batch of dough being mixed in his open kitchen, while fires blaze in two pizza ovens and the scent of meatballs lingers in the air. \u201cI want to know the difference between these two different flours. I want to know what the difference is from a performance standpoint, and from a flavor standpoint. How does it eat? What does it feel like in your hands? What does it feel like in your mouth when your teeth bite through it? I need to be engaged with the product. If pizza dough was like widgets, I wouldn\u2019t be able to get out of bed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richer regards his food as a \u201cconstantly evolving, constantly changing, living, breathing, thing,\u201d and he is willing to go to great lengths to follow the path where it leads. Another pivotal moment in his career was when he first tasted mozzarella made from the high-fat milk of Jersey cows that graze right next to the cheesemaking facilities of Jersey Girl Cheese, about 50 miles from his restaurant. \u201cExtraordinary flavors,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can taste what the cows are eating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richer decided he needed to do everything he could to share this mozzarella with his customers, even if it required changing the way he made pizza. \u201cTypically, we\u2019ll spread sauce around the entire surface of the pizza,\u201d Richer says. But this mozzarella melted and flowed so broadly on the crust \u201cthat we actually had to create resistance to slow down the melt.\u201d So, instead, he drops spoonfuls of the sauce over the crust. \u201cAs the cheese melts, there\u2019s resistance through its contact and friction with the dough, as opposed to there being moisture everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Richer cites this adaptation as indicative of the way in which he is willing to change the preparation of a dish to incorporate a particularly special ingredient. \u201cWe alter our approach to meet the needs of the individual product. And we take that approach to all of our ingredients, cheeses, tomatoes, flour, everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salvatore Pisani, the cheesemaker who owns Jersey Girl<\/a>, says Richer stands out for his willingness to not only acknowledge the variabilities in his artisanal cheese, but to celebrate them, and take the time to explain them to his customers. Many other chefs, Pisani says, are simply looking for a stark white cheese.<\/p>\n\u201cOur milk changes throughout the seasons,\u201d Pisani says. The cows are grazing in the summertime, so the milk and cheese might be a little more yellow. Throughout the winter, it becomes white, because they\u2019re not eating as much fresh grass.\u201d Pisani loves hearing Richer say to his guests, \u201cThis is the real deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The resulting Jersey Margherita\u2014topped with Jersey\u2019s Girl\u2019s mozzarella, local tomatoes, and basil baked onto the pizza\u2014is a pie that Richer enjoys comparing with Razza\u2019s classic Margherita, which features housemade mozzarella, \u201cthe best tomatoes that I can possibly find,\u201d and fresh basil added after baking. \u201cThey\u2019re both margherita pizza: tomato, basil, mozzarella, right?\u201d However, at Razza, the pizzas are \u201ctwo completely different experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n
The married father of two young children was planning to open a second restaurant next door before the COVID-19 pandemic, but has since decided to expand Razza so that he can make more of his in-demand pizzas and bread. \u201cI\u2019m constantly evaluating what we do on a daily basis, because it has to be better tomorrow than it was today,\u201d he says. \u201cWe take one small step forward every day, whether it\u2019s tasting a new ingredient, or trying a new chicken dish, or visiting a flour mill, or visiting an olive oil plant. One step forward leads to the next step forward, and we just keep going. Just keep moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
That goes for both the pizza and for Richer himself. \u201cI want to get better as a human, as a cook, a leader. I still feel like I\u2019m at the beginning of the journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
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