Pizzaiola wins big at Vegas pizza expo
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
About eight or nine years ago, Ed Stalewski started baking pizzas in his kitchen’s Kenmore oven. He’s since started working part time at Mercurio’s in Fox Chapel and recently won the 2022 International Pizza Expo’s Best Non-Traditional Pizza, Northeast Region.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Eddie “Ed” Stalewski slides his award-winning Rosie’s Tavern Pizza into the Kenmore oven in his kitchen in Allison Park. Stalewski was inspired to adorn his pizza in pepperoni roses after seeing charcuterie boards decorated in similar salami flowers.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Traditionally, tavern-style pizzas are baked on flatware, but Stalewski starts the award-wining Rosie’s Tavern Pizza in a pan to achieve the crunchy frico crust in his personal kitchen oven.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
On a recent weekday, Ed Stalewski checks the crust on his homemade Rosie’s Tavern Pizza. The self-taught pizzaiola considers himself a “semi-pro,” but his pizzas certainly don’t taste “semi-good.”
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Ed Stalewski fell short of his goals at last year’s Pizza Expo, but implemented lessons learned this year. In March, he asked to slice his own pizza entry – because, he said, he feared the judges might cut a pepperoni rose in half, diminishing its beauty.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
One thing he’s learned from watching and reading the great pizzaiolos: dress the pizza after it’s cooked. Stalewski on a recent weekday pulled a freshly baked, award-winning pie from his kitchen oven and adorned it with fresh Peppadews, buffalo mozzarella and homemade pesto.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Ed Stalewski adds the finishing touches to his award-winning Rosie’s Tavern Pizza. Though it’s not on the menu at Mercurio’s, folks can enjoy pizza made by the Masontown native at the restaurant’s Fox Chapel location on Wednesdays and Sundays.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
The 2022 Best Non-Traditional Pizza award and the winning pizza, is situated proudly on the kitchen island inside Eddie “Ed” Stalewski’s Allison Park home.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Eddie “Ed” Stalewski proudly displays his award-winning Rosie’s Tavern Pizza inside his Allison Park home. The Masontown native said he could not have achieved success without the support of the pizza community or his family, especially his wife, Jen, and their daughter, Lily.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Ed Stalewski uses only fresh ingredients on his Eddie’s Pizza 412 pies, including homemade pesto and handmade Calabrian sausage. This pizza was honored with the International Pizza Expo’s 2022 Best Non-Traditional Pizza, Northeast Region, in late March.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
In his kitchen, Eddie “Ed” Stalewski flips through the book that started it all: Tony Gemignani’s “The Pizza Bible.” Stalewski is a self-taught pizzaiolo who works part time at Mercurio’s Fox Chapel and recently brought home the 2022 International Pizza Expo’s Best Non-Traditional Pizza, Northeast Region, award.
It all began at Dolfi’s Restaurant.
“My mom was Italian and so she would make a nice dinner for us. And then at the end of the night, I would still want a pizza,” said Masontown native Eddie “Ed” Stalewski, sliding a pizza into his kitchen oven in Allison Park. “(Dolfi’s) was a pretty booming restaurant. They didn’t make the dough fresh, but their sauce was always homemade. It was always good. We would go get pizza maybe … four times a week after dinner.”
The pizza was good cold the next day, Stalewski said, but between himself and his three older sisters (twins Janet and Janice of Pittsburgh, and Carol, of Canonsburg) the pepperoni-topped squares didn’t last that long.
“You could eat that whole pizza,” Stalewski laughed.
Since childhood evenings spent indulging in after-dinner ‘zah, Stalewski has established himself in the pizza world. In late March, the boy from Fayette County won the International Pizza Expo’s Best Non-Traditional Pizza, Northeast Region award for his beautiful, balanced tavern-style pie.
The Pizza Expo is the Olympics of pizza, where anyone who is serious about pizza eats up knowledge bestowed upon audiences during seminars, makes connections with other serious pizzaiolos and competes for pizza glory.
Glory isn’t what the humble pizzaiola who experiments with pizza crusts and flavor combos in his Allison Park home was seeking when he dove headfirst into pizza making. He was just trying to put a Crate & Barrel gift card to good use.
Stalewski’s passion for cooking was no secret at PPG Paints, where he’s worked for 25 years. About eight or nine years ago, his supervisor gifted him a Crate & Barrel gift card for Christmas.
“I went there, and there was this end cap of this pizza stuff. There’s pizza pills and there’s cutters and pans. And there was a book, called ‘The Pizza Bible’ by Tony Gemignani,” Stalewski recalled, keeping his eye on the oven timer. “I picked it up, starting leafing through it. It looked really easy to read. I’m like, OK, I’m going to buy it. So I bought it.”
Stalewski was enthralled. He would fall asleep, “The Pizza Bible” in hand. He read the book cover-to-cover.
“It opened my world up to all these different styles of pizza that I had no idea about,” he said, eyes wide. “I wanted to learn how to make these pizzas. Eventually I bought an Ooni oven … and started tinkering around with that a little bit.”
Stalewski threw himself into pizza, watching online tutorials and reading everything he could about the world. He researched the Pizza Expo, which Gemignani mentioned in his book. In 2018, Stalewski bought a plane ticket and headed west to see what the pizza event was all about.
“It was just 10 football fields worth of pizza stuff,” he said, pausing mid-thought when the timer rang to check his Rosie’s Tavern, baking in the oven. “It’s not just pizza: There’s meats, there’s cheeses. There’s so many seminars. I was really overwhelmed.”
But Stalewski took the event in stride. He sat in on Gemignani’s seminars (and got his “Pizza Bible” signed!), made connections with both local and national pizza royalty. Between that first expo and this year’s, Stalewski (an Albert Gallatin High School grad who spent one year at Waynesburg University before transferring to West Virginia University, where he graduated in 1991 with a degree in business administration marketing) started working part time at the upscale pizzeria and gelato shop Mercurio’s, in Fox Chapel.
There, he has forged friendships within the local pizza community and further honed his pizza artistry.
“There’s so much more to learn. There’s something you can always improve,” Stalewski said.
About four weeks before this year’s International Pizza Expo, Stalewski got down to business crafting his future award-winning pie. He’s known for his square pizzas – a part of childhood he carries with him still – and thick crusts, but tavern-style ‘zahs were trending on social (taverns boast a thin, crispy crust).
Inspiration for toppings struck when Stalewski noticed salami roses decorating a charcuterie board.
“My mom’s name was Rose. My daughter’s middle name is Rose. And March was what we call Women in Pizza Month,” said Stalewski, who topped his winning pizza with pepperoni roses blossoming alongside buffalo mozzarella, homemade pesto and a myriad of other fresh ingredients. “I wanted to sort of honor and dedicate it to both of them.”
It took four weeks to perfect the Rosie’s Tavern Pizza.
“Wednesday I would make (pizza) here at the house, take it over to Mercurio’s. The staff would eat it,” Stalewski said. “Thursday, I was taking half a day and then going down to Iron Born down in the Strip District and baking two down there. Then the staff down there would eat it. I’d make another one here on Sunday, take it to the restaurant. They would eat it there and give me feedback. I did that for four weeks straight.”
Each time he received feedback, Stalewski tweaked his recipe. He scrapped the original fresh basil topping, added Calabrian sausage to the mix (an homage to his mother, whose family hailed from that region in Italy) and switched cheeses.
All the baking – at home, at Mercurio’s and at Iron Born, who kindly lent Stalewski their ovens – was well worth it.
Because in the end – despite his daughter Lily’s teasing insistence that Rosie was not a winning pizza – Stalewski returned home from Vegas with hardware.
“I always try pushing envelopes on doing stuff differently … with pizza,” Stalewski said. “You have to be kind of humble. There’s a lot of good pizza makers and people out there that make great pizzas. I’m just glad people enjoy it.”
Stalewski said he’s not resting on his laurels; he’s got his eyes on another prize at next year’s International Pizza Expo, he said, adding the finishing touches to the freshly baked Rosie’s Tavern.
While he doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar (Stalewski said opening his own pizza shop is something he may do once he retires), he does have a massive following on social media, where folks drool over stunning images of homemade pizzas posted – by Lily – to @eddiespizza412.
He cooks up Mercurio’s delicious Neapolitan pizzas on Wednesdays and Sundays, and spends his free time making pizza for the love of it. Because if you don’t love something, why bother doing it?
“To me, it’s like a painter and his canvas. That’s the way I look at it. It’s nostalgic,” Stalewski said, plating slices of Rosie’s Tavern Pizza for this reporter to taste (not a spoiler: it was heavenly). “I think that’s how pizza is. It always brings people together.”