Local pizza makers and their fans convene on Columbus Commons tonight to raise money for Children's Hospital.
Dubbed 'Slice of Columbus' the fundraiser features 15 local pizzarias.
Greg Fortney has owned and operated Adriatico's Pizza on 11th Avenue for nearly 30 years. He's been a part of 'Slice of Columbus' for the last twenty years. WOSU's Marilyn Smith called him to find out what makes Columbus pizza different than pizza elsewhere in the country.
Slice of Columbus hopes to raise more than $2 million for Nationwide Children's Hospital.
The below transcript is an automated transcript of the conversation, please excuse any and all minor errors or typos.
Marilyn Smith: Is there anything unique about Columbus pizza? New York Pizza is unique. Chicago pizza is unique. What makes Columbus pizza unique?
Greg Fortney: Columbus is blessed with a lot of different types of pizza, what makes ours different is garlic and it's a bit spicy. In the City of Columbus there's quite a few pizzas that are also flavorful and spicy. I think what people in Columbus Like are pizzas that the dough is fresh and that it's plentiful in cheese and plentiful in sauce. A typical New York style pizza tends to not have quite as much sauce as it seems like people like in the Columbus area.
MS: Do you make available both thick pizza and a thin pizza crust?
GF: Yes we have we have a deep dish crust, not a Chicago style, meaning that it's really thick and it has sauce on the top, but we offer a thicker pan pizza and then we offer a thin round and an extra thin round as well
MS: Now in the last couple of years we've seen a number of new pizza shops open here in Columbus do you think that helps everybody or does it take away from your business?
GF: I think it probably does a little bit of both, the new pizza that's come in, the Columbus pizza that's cooked in the high temperature ovens on a really thin crust is a nice product but the problem with that is that it doesn't transport well. so it's great when you eat it in in the place that it's made but by the time you take it home it needs reheated a traditional pizza shop that bakes their pizza for a longer period of time in a lower temperature of and those pizzas tend to hold their heat much longer.
MS: Do you think there's anything new that people can do with pizza?
GF: Gosh, I think that we're all constantly trying to to ask ourselves that question I mean we've experimented with a number of things but I think at the end of the day people have so many choices about what they eat that when they think of pizza they really do think of the more traditional time tested taste of the traditional pizza.
MS: How do you know when it's right, Greg, you said yours was on the garlicky side and you quite a bit of sauce compared to what say in New York style pizza, how do you know when you've hit it exactly right?
GF: Because you get a taste sensation, our pizza has a certain flavor profile and it's just delicious and I mean of course I'm biased but we strive to always try to get that same great taste once you get a flavor of your pizza. Meaning that the right combination of dough and the right combination of cheese in the right taste of your sauce you come up with what with what you market as your your taste sensation and so that's a really hard thing to come up with it it's also a really hard thing to maintain because over time things like spices tend to change from season to season. So you're always trying to slightly modify your sauce to get back to that exact flavor profiles that that you want.
MS: Greg Fortney of Adriatico's pizza thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and your time.
GF: Thank you.