Search the internet for a list of “top U.S. pizza chefs,” and you’ll find names familiar to most people who love a primo pie. Anthony Mangieri (New York) pops up. So does Tony Gemignani (San Francisco, Rohnert Park, and Nevada). Chris Bianco (Phoenix and Los Angeles), Massimo Laveglia and Nick Baglivo (New York), and man after man after flour-dusted, tomato-stained man.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. There’s no question that these celebrity-tossed pizzas are excellent. Yet there’s something happening in Sonoma County that’s slicing a new piece of the pie. Our fiery ovens are being tended by more women, more LGBTQ+ folks, and more traditionally underrepresented chefs making magnificent pizzas.
Consider the diversity in our top local kitchens, with new, notable chefs including Leah Scurto of PizzaLeah in Windsor; Michele Querin of Gabacool Provisions (which pops up weekly at local breweries); Leith Leiser-Miller of Psychic Pie in Sebastopol; and Dany Cleland of Slow Co. Pizza in Cotati, who identifies as nonbinary.
Individually, the group has stacked up awards, won scholarships at acclaimed pizza academies, and founded a new educational program for other female pizzaiolas (the Italian title for a trained pizza maker). And they’re working together to support each other in the largely male-dominated industry, where according to a November 2024 statistic in Total Food Service industry tracker, of the more than 774,000 pizza makers currently employed in the United States, 39.8% are women, while 60.2% are men.
“It’s really about not being taken seriously,” says Scurto, who is a World Pizza Champions team member and five-time national winner, won the grand prize in the 2023 Real California Pizza Contest Tournament of Champions, and in 2022 was featured on Hulu’s show “Best In Dough.”
“The first time I competed at the World Pizza Championships in Italy. A guy said, ‘I want to get a photo of the American team, all together,’” she recalls. “I’m standing there in the same uniform, same USA chef coat as everybody else, and he hands me the camera to take the picture. Oh, not cool. That sort of thing, I don’t stand for.”
In Italy, being a pizzaiola (pizza maker) is a highly respected profession, with the skilled artisan using a combination of art and science to get the dough, toppings, and baking so perfect that, to make an authentic Neapolitan pizza, the chef must be certified by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana and Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani.
While none of this local group makes Neapolitan-style pizza, all have put extensive study into their skills, and use exclusively premium ingredients.
When Scurto opened her shop in 2020, she wowed connoisseurs with her twists on New York- and Detroit-style pies, draped in mouthwatering combos like the Mush-a-Roni, which won her first place at the 2018 U.S. Pizza Cup for its simple but delectable marriage of red sauce, pepperoni, and cremini mushrooms finished with salty, shaved Parmesan and sweet, julienned basil.
In 2024, she received the coveted Slow Food Sonoma County’s Snail of Approval for her dedication to sourcing sustainable ingredients from local food producers like SingleThread Farms, Journeyman Meats, and Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co.
Despite the accolades, she still occasionally gets dismissed.
“I get salespeople who walk in all the time and ask me to get the owner, they want to talk to him,” Scurto says. “I mean, my name’s on the building. So I’ll call one of my kitchen guys out, and I walk away.”
Part of the solution comes from underrepresented chefs making themselves heard, but that’s easier said than done, says Scurto.
“When I go to International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas, I see women in the audience wanting to ask questions but hesitating because they don’t want to look stupid.”
Michele Querin of Gabacool Provisions was one of those women at the expo dealing with a case of impostor syndrome. She recalls listening to a talk by three women who had won a scholarship for aspiring female pizzaiolas to attend Pizza University in Beltsville, Maryland.
“I was there with Leah (Scurto) and thinking it’s really cool, but I wasn’t thinking of myself as part of the group,” Querin says. “And then Leah said, ‘You are one of us, you should sign up.’ And then I won, and it changed my life.”
The scholarship, sponsored by Corto and Stanislaus, who make olive oil and tomato products, allowed Querin to attend a three-day master class at Pizza University. The win — and the training — gave her confidence to create her signature pies her way, too — meaning no compromises on ingredients, no substitutions, and no gluten-free.
“I mean, we’re definitely in customer service, but within reason,” she says, of the policy she and her partner Jeremy Clemens instituted for their pop-up. “We’re definitely hard on no half-and-half kind of stuff. We’re not Domino’s, and changing ingredients mean our pizzas don’t bake or really taste right.”
Querin sticks to her rule of one-size pies (12-inch) made strictly to order, in sumptuous combos such as the Giuseppe: red sauce, mozzarella, Bellwether Farms ricotta, sheep milk pecorino, Italian sausage, pepperoni, shallot, and basil. Ask nicely, and she’ll let you add garlic or Mike’s Hot Honey.
Leiser-Miller debuted Psychic Pie in 2021 with her husband, Nicholi Ludlow, crafting Roman-style square pizzas. Although she has a Ph.D. in biology, she found her true love lay in farming and food and “the passion of pizza,” particularly the thick, crisp sourdough crust crafted in 8-by-8-inch squares.
“It’s not a traditional kind,” she says. “We have seasonal flavors for at least half of the menu, working with 20 or more small farms to reflect the flavors of Sonoma County.”
That means her pizzas are crafted with ingredients like local ricotta, roasted mushrooms, tangy chèvre, lemon zest, and parsley, sold as whole pies or by the slice, and priced by the pound. She’s also a fan of vegetarian pies, like a recipe of sweet corn and caramelized roasted pickled peppers, and makes no apologies for the less traditional toppings.
At Slow Co. Pizza, Dany Cleland works with partner Dane Baratta, sourcing as many ingredients as possible from within Sonoma County. The duo opened the boutique eatery in late 2024.
“We both love nerding out about anything, but I like to do a lot of the special creation stuff,” Cleland says of the 10-inch pies in combos like pesto, white sauce, mushrooms, Toma cheese, dry Jack cheese, and dressed arugula. “And I think both of us lack ego in a lot of ways — we’ll ping-pong ideas off each other a lot, and it’s fun when customers want to try things they’ve never heard of, like spigarello (mild Italian broccoli). We joke that pizza is so approachable, people will try any great ingredient we offer.”
The chef says they found some of their recipe bravery from Sarah Minnick, owner of Lovely’s Fifty Fifty in Portland. Minnick is a multi-time James Beard Award semifinalist, including a 2025 nomination for Outstanding Chef. She makes her pizzas with wood-fired whole-grain sourdough crust blanketed in foraged flowers, wild mushrooms, and unusual produce such as tatsoi Chinese cabbage.
“The cool veggies she puts on pizza blew my mind,” Cleland says. “I was reading her menu and I didn’t even know what some of the ingredients are. But I wanted it all.”
Now, the established pizzaiola hopes to pay their experience forward.
“As articles are written about me, I really see (it) as a privilege I have to be in a position of power,” they say. “I hope younger trans and underrepresented kids can see me in a place that’s in the public eye and feel like they can really be a part of the community.”
PizzaLeah’s Scurto continues to use her celebrity pizzaiola status to make the industry more inclusive.
She recently co-founded Fork to Future with Laura Meyer, owner of Pizzeria da Laura in Berkeley. The mission is to unite, educate, and uplift women and marginalized groups in food, beverage, and hospitality through events like their first ever P.I.E. (Pizza Industry Empowerment) Conference held in Washington last fall. The event was invitation-only, bringing together 31 women from 28 different states. Scurto and Meyer are planning their second annual P.I.E. Conference, slated for September in Berkeley.
“Because we are women pizza makers, our first event was heavily focused on women pizza makers,” Scurto says. “In the future, we want to be a little more inclusive and focus on more underrepresented people across the pizza industry.”
For Scurto, it’s only natural that women have a big role to play in pushing the pizza industry forward.
“I mean, there’s an entire kind of pizza born out of Long Island called the grandma style, which I have on my menu. The Italian immigrant grandmothers taught the men how to make it,” she says. “Women have been making pizzas for generations in the United States, and it’s time we’re at the forefront.”
Learn more about Fork to Future’s mission for inclusivity at forktofuture.org.
PizzaLeah: 9240 Old Redwood Hwy., Suite 116, Windsor. 707-620-0551, pizzaleah.com
Gabacool Provisions: The weekly pop-up schedule is posted on Instagram, @gabacool_provisions, more info at gabacoolprovisions.com
Psychic Pie: 980 Gravenstein Hwy. S., Sebastopol. 707-827-6032, psychicpie.com
Slow Co. Pizza: 8197 La Plaza, Cotati. 707-796-5124, slowcopizza.com
