International Pizza Consultant Anthony Falco, right, making pizzas with Tusk chef Sam Smith. (Photo by Michael Russell | The Oregonian)

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When a self-described “International Pizza Consultant” calls Portland “the greatest pizza city in America,” you tend to take note.

Anthony Falco, a former pizza chef at Brooklyn’s popular Roberta’s, was visiting Portland Wednesday, his second trip west in two weeks, this time to make pizza for the Feast Portland food and drink festival kick-off party at The Overlook House in North Portland.

Pulling out rounds of dough before a row of super-hot Easy Bake-sized Breville ovens, Falco explained he'd developed his pet theory after visits to three of Portland's top pizzerias: the classic East Coast-style Apizza Scholls, the seasonally-driven Lovely's Fifty Fifty and the nerdy-fun slice shop Scottie's. (For the record, those are, respectively, two of Portland's very best restaurants and the city's No. 2 slice shop.)

For Falco, it's all about the ingredients, particularly the flour. In Portland, pizzerias such as Scottie's or Handsome make naturally leavened doughs using high-quality milled grains from the Pacific Northwest. (Contrast that with the bleached and bromated flours used at many Manhattan pie shops.) Others, most notably North Mississippi's Lovely's Fifty Fifty, are essential farm-to-table restaurants in their own right, places where the market-fresh produce, foraged mushrooms and pungent cheeses happen to be found on a pizza.

"The things that are important in pizza are the quality of ingredients and the skill level represented in the dough itself," Falco said. "When you have somebody like Brian Spangler (of Apizza Scholls), who has a background as a baker, or Ken Forkish (of Ken's Artisan Pizza), who has a background as a baker as well, and then you look at what Lovely's is doing with local and seasonal ingredients, and her dough is remarkable as well, are the things that are impressive to me. And then I have to eat it, so I also want it to be made with great ingredients."

On Wednesday, after hearing Falco drop this scorching hot take, I asked him if he meant best pound-for-pound. He said no. He meant best, period. But on Monday, after this story first published, he called to elaborate.

"If quantity is the only category that you care about, then obviously nowhere is going to come close New York or Sao Paolo, places I've spent a lot of time," Falco said. "But it's crazy to base this just on quantity. Forget about quantity and size. Let's say it's a bracket. And you have Portland's top three against the top three in San Francisco and Los Angeles, L.A. doesn't even make it to the second round. And Chicago? Come on. It's all about ingredients. Ingredients, ingredients. That's what I'm really trying to highlight, instead of just being controversial."

"There is no Portland-style pizza, and I think thats one of the reasons why it's great," Falco continued. "It's unhindered by any kind of tradition, and people are just doing what was done in the beginning of pizza: They're using what's around them. That's originally what made Naples pizza so great, the mozzarella, the tomatoes, the basil, the flour. The surrounding area of Oregon, with just what's happening with wheat and vegetables, it's awesome. And people are actually using them on their pizza, because they're not encumbered by their style."

For the record, that International Pizza Consultant title is a bit tongue-in-cheek, though Falco does indeed travel the globe, sourdough starter stowed in his suitcase, helping restaurants set up their pizza programs. And his guanciale, wild mushroom and liquified triple cream cheese pizza was one of the best bites of the misty night, joining the caviar-topped Cool Ranch Doritos from Kachka and the salt-and-pepper fried everything from San Francisco's Mister Jiu's. Who better to make the call on Portland's national pizza ranking?

"At the end of the day, what makes a great pizza is up to everybody," Falco said. "I'm as much of an authority as an International Pizza Consultant can be, and if people don't agree with me, it's cool. But if somebody sees this and decides to check out the pizza scene in Portland, they'd be doing themselves a big favor, because they'd be eating great pizza."

-- Michael Russell

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Learn more:

How to become an International Pizza Consultant (F&W)

Anthony Falco Left Roberta's. Now He's an "International Pizza Consultant" (Bon App)

The Corporate Delivery Pie You Secrety Love -- But Better (NYT)

Portland's best pizza by the slice, ranked (The O)

Note: Look for a longer Feast Portland 2018 diary later today.

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