At the beginning of this month, my friend Tony Gemignani, owner of Tony’s Napoletana in San Francisco shocked the International pizza world again with his first place win at the 10th Annual World Championships of Pizza Makers in Naples, Italy. Tony surpassed over 300 international competitors with his Pizza a Metro, or Roman style pizza, and walked away with the Caputo Cup. This is the only APN (Association Pizza Napolitani) sanctioned competition in the world. It’s sponsored by Caputo Flour.

Tony has always been a smooth competitor. Here he is in the largest dough stretch at the World Pizza Championships in Italy.

“It is a great honor to be the first American to win with all these great Italian pizzas being made here,” Tony said as he held this huge trophy. Tony’s winning pizza was a meter-long Roman-style pizza called “Quattro Regioni,” or Four Regions. Ingredients from Rome, Naples, Puglia, and Calabria were represented on this pizza. “All the planning, preparation, and hard travel to get over here and make a great pizza has paid off.” Tony says. “It was over 100 degrees in there and I was worried about my dough. The four judges grilled me with questions but I soon found that each of these judges came from a region on my pizza.”

Tony is the owner of Tony’s Napoletana in San Francisco and Chief Instructor at the International School of Pizza. He is also President of the World Pizza Champions and is no stranger to winning in Italy. He had just added “Best Pizza in the U.S.A.” at the World Pizza Championships in Northern Italy to his ten other International culinary awards. Tony has just opened 900 Degrees with his partner and another pizza legend, Bruno di Fabio in New York City.

Congratulations Tony! You’re a great pizza man and a great friend.