Most people have heard of “craft” beer, produced by thousands of small, independent breweries in the United States. Now it’s table mate craft pizza, has debuted in Celebration. Located just a few doors down from Publix among the Water Tower Shoppes, Posto Pizza is the collaboration of two Celebration residents, award-winning master chef Michel Revy and popular Celebration K-8 teacher Ali Gowen.
What is craft pizza and what makes Posto Pizza so special?
According to the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Surveys Research Group, one out every eight Americans eats pizza on any given day (and one in four adult males), https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARS. Most pizzas are traditional varieties based on toppings such as pepperoni, sausage, etc., and are served in popular styles and shapes such as deep dish, pan, grilled and sheet. Craft pizza, on the other hand, features premium, and often-innovative ingredients, usually baked in classical pizza ovens (rather than on conveyors).
Says Revy, “Posto Pizza serves the very best food that I know how to make, from scratch, with no shortcuts, but at an affordable price.”
With 27 years of experience in a spectrum of venues from casual to fine dining, and styles from Italian (his favorite) to French to Japanese, Revy understands and appreciates the art of cooking. Born in Brazil and emigrating to the United States as a young adult, he has honed his craft through such diverse assignments as a sous chef on Celebrity Cruise lines, cooking class instructor, general manager and head chef of a fine dining restaurant in Lakeland, chef at Epcot’s Coral Reef restaurant, supervisor of 14 pavilions at Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival and most recently at two Walt Disney World upscale restaurants, as sous chef at the Swan’s Il Mulino Italian style trattoria, and head chef at the Dolphin’s award-winning coastal cuisine bluezoo, under renown celebrity chef Todd English.
There are no shortcuts at Posto Pizza (posto means, “place” in Italian). Explains Revy, “the base of any pizza is flour, cheese and tomato. We import those ingredients from Italy, ingredients used by the most famous Italian pizzaioli: 1) Caputo zero-zero flour, made from the finest European winter wheat ground to a fine powder; 2) spheroidal blocks of fior di latte mozzarella cheese; and 3) world-famous San Marzano tomatoes (interestingly, like French Champagne, San Marzano tomatoes are grown under strict rules designed to protect and promote the regional agricultural products of the Sarno River valley, near Mount Vesuvius).
Not only are the pizzas prepared from scratch, but also the sausage. In addition, all cooking is done on the centerpiece of Posto Pizza, a custom-made, classical, Napolitana-style brick pizza oven made by the internationally known Forno Bravo Pizza Oven Factory in California. Patrons can watch their pizza be inserted into the dome-shaped, red-tiled, 2-ton oven with one-foot-thick walls, baked at the proper temperature of 800 degrees F.
The Posto Pizza menu features four salads, a meat and cheese platter, eight traditional pizzas and eight unique craft pizzas, available as a whole pizza or by the slice, and three delicious Italian deserts. A selection of craft beers and wines from noteworthy small breweries and vineyards across the United States carefully match the craft theme. The full menu and other Posto Pizza insights can be found on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter (postopizza.fl).
Though patrons can enjoy sit-down service watching their pizza emerge from the pizza oven, Revy estimates that about 80% of their business is carryout or delivery. A loyalty program adds to the value offered to frequent customers.
Dedicated to serving the residents and visitors of Celebration, Posto Pizza is one more delicious addition that contributes to the unique appeal of our Town.
By Jim Siegel