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Inside Our Kitchen: A Day with Our Head Chef

June 12, 2026 Pizza House Kitchen 6 Comments

Most people know our dining room: the brick oven glowing at the back, the smell of wood smoke and basil, the line out the door on Friday nights. Fewer people know what happens before the doors open. We spent a full day inside the kitchen with Marco, our head chef, to show you exactly how the Pizza House machine runs.

5:00am - The Dough Is Awake

Marco is through the door before the sun. The first job of the day is the dough: every batch mixed yesterday afternoon has been cold-fermenting for eighteen hours, and now it needs to be divided, balled and set aside for its final proof. Marco works through sixty kilos of dough by hand - no mixer does this part - because the feel of the dough under your fingers tells you more than any recipe can.

9:00am - Sauce and Prep

By mid-morning the kitchen smells of garlic and basil. San Marzano tomatoes are crushed by hand, mozzarella is drained and sliced, and the prep team works through the day's vegetables - mushrooms for the truffle special, fresh spinach, roasted peppers, and the cured meats our deli counter keeps under glass. Nothing sits overnight. If it is not used today, it is composted today.

11:30am - The Fire Comes Up

The oven takes a full hour to reach working temperature. Marco feeds the fire oak logs, watching the flames lap the dome until the thermometer reads 400°C. "People think the oven is the machine," he says, "but the oven is an instrument. The fire is the machine." By the time the first lunch orders hit the pass, the floor is already hot enough to char a slice in ninety seconds.

The afternoon is a blur of tickets, timers and three-minute pizzas. Between rushes Marco does what he calls his "sweep" - walking the line, tasting sauces, adjusting the salt in the day's dough mix, calling out praise to the prep team. It is the kind of leadership you cannot put on a resume.

10:00pm - Fire-Down

The last pizza of the night comes out a few minutes before ten. The staff gather around the marble counter for family meal - whatever is left, cooked properly, shared like a table. Then the fire is banked, the floors are scrubbed and the dough for tomorrow is mixed. Twelve hours later, Marco will be back at the door before sunrise, doing it all again.

Come by on a quiet Tuesday and ask to sit near the oven. You might catch him mid-sweep.