A Day Making NYC’s Most Hyped Pizza

Bon Appétit

Join Bon Appétit as we spend a day on the line with chefs Jacob Serebnick and Julian Geldmacher, co-owners of Ceres Pizza, a standout pizzeria located in New York City's Lower East Side. Jacob and Julian first crossed paths while working together at a 3-Michelin-starred restaurant. They later followed their passion to launch Ceres Pizza, built from the ground up with no outside investors–just a shared dream to create exceptional, handcrafted pizza.  Director: Ian Stroud Director of Photography: Carlos Araujo Editor: Jared Hutchinson Talent: Jacob Serebnick Senior Creative Producer: Mel Ibarra Line Producer: Jamie Rasmussen Associate Producer: Oadhan Lynch Production Manager: Janine Dispensa Camera Operator: Justin Newman Assistant Camera: Mickey Staten Sound Recordist: Rachel Suffian Post Production Supervisor: Andrea Farr Supervising Editor: Eduardo Araujo Assistant Editor: Billy Ward Director of Content; Production: Ali Inglese Senior Director; Creative Development: Dan Siegel Senior Director; Programming : Jon Wise VP; Head of Video: June Kim

Transcript

00:00Ceres is a pizzeria in the Lower East Side.

00:02Julian and I met working at 11 Madison Park.

00:04It's a fine dining restaurant in Midtown

00:06with three Michelin stars that in 2016

00:08was rated the best restaurant in the world.

00:10We don't have any investors.

00:12We got like $2,000 left in our bike account

00:14and about a quarter million dollars in credit card debt.

00:17When we opened this place, we did it with the intention

00:19to make the best pizza that we can,

00:21and the response has been crazy.

00:23It's consistently out the door.

00:24It's really been a blessing.

00:25Good morning, guys. My name is Jacob.

00:31I'm an owner-operator here at Ceres Pizza.

00:33It's 6.30 in the morning right now.

00:34Time to make some pizza dough.

00:41So first step is to get started on dough production.

00:43I'm just going to weigh out some of the ingredients.

00:45Consistency is the number one thing for us here.

00:48Six kilos of sourdough starter,

00:50and this will be used to make approximately 150 pizzas.

00:54So we used this organic double zero flour from Utah.

00:59Central Milling just does a really good job

01:00of making a consistent product.

01:03This is Julian, my business partner,

01:05who's stealing the flour from me.

01:08This is an organic whole wheat flour.

01:10Plays a pretty important role in the texture.

01:14Flavor too.

01:15This is an organic bolted flour.

01:16It's like a whole wheat flour that's been sifted

01:18to remove some of the larger pieces of bran.

01:21So the bolted flour imparts like a nice savory,

01:23like malted flavor while also imparting a lot of strength.

01:27When it comes to like planning out a day,

01:29we just have like a very hard deadline.

01:31Obviously working at places like Love Madison Park,

01:33they put a real emphasis on this, so it certainly helps.

01:36Julian is over here.

01:37He started the dough mixing process.

01:40This mixer is great because the bowl spins itself

01:43in both directions and has this very important breakup bar

01:47in the center of the mixer right here,

01:48which helps break the gluten structure that's building

01:51when the dough is mixing.

01:53Just helps us get a more even mix

01:56than any other traditional mixer would.

01:58Very small changes in temperature will affect the dough,

02:02and because you have that breakup bar,

02:05you minimize the amount of time

02:06that the dough spends in the mixer.

02:08Therefore, you create less heat.

02:10We're trying to control all the variables here.

02:12We record the weights of every single flour.

02:14We record the ambient temperature.

02:16We record the weight of the starter,

02:18the temperature of the water that we used.

02:20If something goes wrong, we can go back into the dough log,

02:24look at the previous day, and see what was slightly off.

02:28We got to call the plumber that drains.

02:31What do you mean?

02:32It's draining when it's closed.

02:34Oh no, I fixed this problem.

02:36Okay, but also this is dripping a lot.

02:40A lot of water coming out of there.

02:41The water is draining when it's not supposed to.

02:44Because we're on such a tight timeline,

02:45we got to call the plumber right now.

02:47Fix it.

02:48That doesn't change that there's a lot of water

02:50dripping out of this, and we did not fix it.

02:52This is an old building in Chinatown.

02:54It's been around for almost 100 years at this point.

02:57We have a lot of maintenance challenges.

02:59We've been learning about HVAC and plumbing

03:01and electricity ever since we opened this place,

03:03and it's been awesome.

03:05Stare at the drain for a little bit.

03:06Yeah, stare at the drain.

03:07We got about 25 minutes left of the...

03:11It's not dripping.

03:12It's not dripping.

03:13Did I fix it?

03:14How?

03:15What happened?

03:16Smart guy.

03:17Plumber guy.

03:18What happened?

03:19Plumbing smart guy.

03:20What did you do?

03:21Magic.

03:22Tell me right now.

03:23I just fixed the drain.

03:24All right, we'll keep an eye on that.

03:25It's been 30 minutes, so it's time to add the salt

03:26and get the dough mixing.

03:28We like to use sea salt in the restaurant

03:29because there is a mineral content in the sea salt

03:32that I think adds more than just salinity.

03:36So Julian and I met in 2019.

03:39We were working at a restaurant called 11 Madison Park.

03:42Julian was my sous chef, which means he was in charge of me.

03:44I was making cheesecakes and making souffles.

03:48Yeah, I've never spent so much time with anybody.

03:50I hear this guy breathes sometimes.

03:51Yeah, yeah.

03:52But we both have, like, the same passion

03:54for just, like, using the best ingredients.

03:56I think something that we're really proud of,

03:58like, this area of the restaurant,

03:59even though it's not the prettiest.

04:01We don't have any products

04:02that we can't defend tooth and nail.

04:04I don't have to justify why we need to spend...

04:07$55 a liter for olive oil.

04:09Yeah.

04:10So we used two different types of olive oil here.

04:13One is a little bit cheaper,

04:15which is still a great olive oil.

04:16It's from Buonitalia.

04:17It's an extra virgin olive oil.

04:19Then we have a finishing olive oil.

04:21This particular one is the fourth finishing oil

04:25that we've settled on.

04:26It's from Tuscany,

04:27just, like, a very clean, distinct flavor,

04:30which is great for finishing our pizza.

04:32Now we're just gonna take the dough out of the mixer.

04:34We're gonna do 27 kilograms per bin.

04:38We make sure that each bin is consistent in weight

04:40so that we can get a visual idea

04:42of, like, how much gas is in the dough as it ferments.

04:46So now we have all the bins weighed out,

04:48or 27 kilos each.

04:50First step after they come out of the mixer

04:51is to just give them a quick initial fold.

04:54Folding bread dough is about building additional strength,

04:58making sure that the dough is strong enough

05:00to withstand the fermentation,

05:01organizing the structure of the dough.

05:04So we take the temperature.

05:0678.4, right?

05:070.4, yeah.

05:08Next step here is gonna be to take the pH of the dough.

05:11Just rinse it in a little bit of distilled water,

05:13and we're looking for somewhere around 5.6.

05:18So we're at 5.65 right now.

05:20The higher the number, the less acidic.

05:22So we're looking for that number to drop

05:24to somewhere around 5.4, 5.39,

05:28before we actually cut.

05:29The acid is an indicator of how much food the yeast has consumed.

05:34So the more gas that's in it,

05:35the sort of more difficult it will be to roll into balls,

05:39and then that sort of extends into the next day.

05:42If it's difficult to roll into balls,

05:44it will be difficult to shape into a pizza.

05:46We'll get these like thick spots and thin spots,

05:49which is sort of the enemy of consistency

05:52even across a single pizza.

05:54What's next, honestly,

05:55would be some like small task like cutting chives.

05:59It's 8.30.

06:00You have 30 minutes before we have to check on the dough again.

06:02So just doing some miscellaneous mise en place,

06:04cutting some chives for the white pie.

06:08We have five different pizzas that we make here at Ceres.

06:10Cheese pie, arnduja pie, tomato pie, mushroom pie,

06:14and then we have a white pie.

06:15It's in the style of a tart flambe or a flam.

06:20Flamkuchen.

06:21I have, my mouth doesn't really make that sound.

06:23We use creme fraiche product that we get from Kendall Farms,

06:26and then we use pancetta, onions,

06:29and we finish it with chives.

06:30Sort of like our take on this like classic

06:33Alsatian or German tart.

06:36So while Jacob slices chives,

06:38I'm going to start making the tomato sauce.

06:42We tested a lot of tomatoes,

06:44and we decided to use San Marzano tomatoes.

06:48Passata is an already milled tomato.

06:51A lot of the water is removed from the tomato,

06:53so it's too thick.

06:55Therefore, it's a way more intense, rich flavor.

06:58That's why we decided to use Casa Marzano plum tomatoes,

07:02and we'll mill those,

07:03and we'll use the tomato juices in the can.

07:06The food milk allows us to have an even consistency

07:10of the plum tomatoes.

07:11If you use a blender,

07:13you basically lose control of that,

07:16and this just adds another layer of control over the texture,

07:20and this way we can ensure that the sauce

07:21is the same every single day.

07:23It makes a product that is like easy to distribute on the pizza.

07:27Anthony Mangieri at Una is another guy who makes awesome pizza.

07:31I remember him saying,

07:32San Marzano's have this like green strawberry level of acidity,

07:36which in combination with mozzarella and scamorza

07:40create a pizza that is like salty,

07:42but that you can also eat a decent amount of

07:44because the acid sort of helps you not be bogged down

07:48with the amount of salt that we put in it.

07:51We're going to let it sit in this container

07:54just to make sure that the salt gets absorbed evenly into the sauce.

07:58It's 8.55.

08:00I have five minutes before I have to go check on the dough again,

08:02but we have our pizza boxes.

08:06All have stuff that needs to be filled out on them,

08:08the type of pie, so this one is going to be a cheese pie,

08:11and then pie, so this is like both Juliet and I,

08:14we're the only two making the pizza right now.

08:15The goal of this was to basically motivate

08:18whoever in the future is going to make that pizza

08:22to put the best product out there that they can.

08:24Also, what we're super proud of are these little like NYC vents here,

08:28which ensures that the steam is not trapped in the box

08:31and kind of maintain the crispiness of the pie.

08:34So now we're at the point where Julian is going to be upstairs

08:36preparing for service, getting the station ready.

08:39I have to spend a little bit more time down here,

08:41finishing up the dough process,

08:42making sure that we're all good here.

08:44We came downstairs and noticed that our HVAC down here wasn't working,

08:47so we're going to have a technician come by and see what's going on.

08:50We've got about 30 minutes left until we've got to cut the dough.

08:55He's just talking to our HVAC guy,

08:56trying to get it a little bit colder down here.

08:58But in the meantime, I'm going to grate some of this skimorza.

09:00It's like a low moisture mozzarella that we use for the majority of our pizza

09:04that we have made for us by a small farm in Branchville, New Jersey,

09:07called Jersey Girl.

09:08These are aged for about two weeks in a cave.

09:11Just like makes a product that has all sorts of nuance

09:14that you don't get for commercial manufactured plant.

09:16I think it's like a huge part of the reason that our pizza is what it is.

09:20Julian is upstairs making sure that we're all ready for the rush to come.

09:24I'm just down here grating through the rest of this cheese.

09:30Our sink's broken.

09:32You got a wrench?

09:33We try to build in time for things like this,

09:36which is difficult because you never know how long something like this is going to take.

09:40You know, behind me right now, our HVAC being repaired.

09:43Once 11.45 hits, it's sort of a non-negotiable that both of us be upstairs.

09:49It's just bad. It just feels bad.

09:51You need to change the whole unit.

09:52How much does one of these cost?

09:54Many thousands of dollars.

09:55Oh, okay.

09:58No, no, no.

10:00This is broken.

10:01I'm going to go see if I can do something about it.

10:03I'm going to go to the plumbing supply store.

10:04You're going there now?

10:06Okay.

10:07It's 10 o'clock.

10:08Julian is making off the first few pies.

10:10Just realized the part that was broken in our sink.

10:12I'm going to go see if I can get a new one at the plumbing supply store.

10:17So what we're going to start with, we have the sieve here with rice flour.

10:21And so the rice flour doesn't stick to the pie.

10:23It doesn't give that cakey, burnt flour on the bottom.

10:26We have our dough tempering here.

10:28If the dough is too cold, it will prevent us getting good oven spring.

10:31Oven spring is how much the crust of the pizza rises while it's baking.

10:35And then we form the crust, trap that air in the dough.

10:40And then the rest of the pie kind of gets flattened out.

10:43We'll flip it up.

10:44We want to make sure it's nice and even.

10:46We'll kind of let the weight of the dough kind of stretch itself.

10:50We go once around.

10:50And after that, we do a little check.

10:52We feel the crust to see if there's any thin or thick spots.

10:55Add it to the peel.

10:57We're going to make the mushroom pie.

10:59So here we have creme fraiche seasoned with 1% salt.

11:03Creme fraiche is basically slightly fermented cream,

11:06which gives it this acidic flavor, which mimics that acidic tomato.

11:11The reason tomato sauce works so great on pizza is because that acid kind of cuts through

11:17the salt and the fat and all of that.

11:20Next, we're distributing chopped portobello mushrooms, white onions.

11:25I don't think many pizza spots use creme fraiche.

11:27It's a quite expensive product to use, but it just happens to work really well for our flavoring.

11:35The pizza gets cut immediately when it comes out of the oven.

11:39There's steam trying to escape.

11:42And by cutting it immediately, it doesn't make the pie soggy from the inside.

11:47The next step is to put the pie on a screen.

11:52This prevents the pie gets soggy from the bottom.

11:55The steam has a place to go.

11:57This one, we finish with porcini stock powder,

12:01which gives it a super, super rich mushroom flavor.

12:04Next, we're going to make the tomato pie.

12:08One scoop.

12:10We're launching the pizza on stone that's roughly 570 degrees.

12:14The pizza that we just cooked here means that the deck cools down to 520.

12:21Once you launch a cold pizza on a hot stone, basically the stone cools down.

12:27So then before you launch another pizza on that spot, you need to make sure that the stone is recovered back to its original temperature.

12:34Our oven as it stands here right now is the reason that we're limited to only being able to make 150 pies per day.

12:41The new oven we're trying to get is going to be seven inches wider and four inches deeper.

12:47will allow us to double our capacity.

12:49We're roughly 300 pizzas a day.

12:51For our tomato pie, there's no cheese on it.

12:53It's just Sunrazano tomatoes.

12:55We do usually finish it with Parmigiano-Reggiano and a garlic-infused olive oil that we make.

13:01Now we are making the anduja pie.

13:04Anduja is a spicy Calabrian pork sausage.

13:08Traditionally, it's just 75% ground pork and 25% Calabrian chilies.

13:16So for this one, we'll do a scoop and a half of the tomato sauce, small cubes of fresh mozzarella.

13:24It has quite a high moisture content.

13:26And if we were to shred it, it would just become impossible to use.

13:29And then next, we add scomorza cheese and aged mozzarella.

13:34This is the anduja that we were talking about.

13:36Beautiful, rich, spicy, deep flavor.

13:40For us, it's super important to use authentic anduja from Calabria.

13:44There's a lot of Calabrian chili in there, deep red colors.

13:49It's 10.29.

13:51I just got back from the plumbing supply store.

13:53They didn't have the replacement knob that we needed.

13:56So we have a new entire sink assembly here.

13:59Talk to a plumber who is at the supply store, who's working down the street.

14:02He's going to be by in the next hour or two.

14:05And hopefully sometime in the next two hours, we'll be able to do some dishes.

14:11It's 10.35.

14:13We got like 150 dough balls to roll before we can go back upstairs.

14:17So it's a go time, I guess.

14:22Sort of now a race against the clock just in terms of us needing to be taking orders relatively soon.

14:29And also it being hot down here in the dough, becoming more and more gassy.

14:34We have Julian slowly rolling the dough balls.

14:36Slowly?

14:38The guy at the plumbing store got really mad when I asked him if he could come right now.

14:41Really?

14:41Yeah, he got really upset.

14:43Gotta know what you gotta do.

14:45So I just kind of like use the bench scraper to make sure that there's not any rogue dough sticking.

14:52And then use my pinkies to tuck it in.

14:55Use the bench scraper to pick it up.

14:58So this is an example of a hole that was created.

15:01So the chance that there's an air bubble building that will kind of eat its way through that dough ball

15:06is extremely high.

15:07So this is where it's like really important to kind of close it off and then put it in.

15:12And yeah, we'll be standing here for the next 40 minutes or so.

15:15Just making sure that all of our dough balls are consistent size and shape.

15:19So it's 1128, looks like the sink is going to get fixed later today.

15:24Dough balls are all rolled.

15:25Now it's time to take some orders.

15:29What can we do for you?

15:30Uh, I'm going to get two pies.

15:31Yeah, a cheese pie?

15:32Yeah.

15:33So right now we're selling pies on a pre-order basis only,

15:35going all the way until 8 p.m.

15:37Hopefully sell a lot of pieces.

15:38I think we just had like a very good working relationship.

15:42When you look for a business partner, you've got to find someone who is better at certain things,

15:46and you complement each other really well.

15:48It's very much like an equal partnership here.

15:51Thanks so much for spending the day with us guys,

15:52but it's 11.56 and we've got pies to make, so you've got to go somewhere else.

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