Twin brothers Gabe and Sal Baldinucci have been in the pizza business for a long time. Their parents opened a pizza restaurant in Long Island, New York in 1977 and Gabe tells us their parents put them to work early, doing their homework at the restaurant after school and then folding boxes, prepping food and making dough.
After high school Gabe, Sal and their brother Ed opened five pizza places withing a few years, which they eventually sold. Gabe would transition into tech and Ed would go to law school, but Sal has never stopped making pizza full-time. Now, living in the same city again for the first time in years, Gabe and Sal are back in business.
Along with Sal's wife Patricia, the brothers will open Baldinucci Pizza in West Lake Hills in August and have been operating a cloud kitchen since March where they host private tastings and provide delivery to surrounding area.
We caught up with Gabe to learn more about what is happening.
Why did you and Sal relocate to Austin?
I’d been working in the startup space and come to Austin every few years for SXSW. On a visit early 2019 I saw how much the city had grown and realized I wanted to live here and build my venture studio here. I was looking to move somewhere with a better quality of life after leaving my company in Silicon Valley and I thought it would be a great place to attract talent as well. I also realized that there was a huge opportunity for Sal and Patricia to bring their New York pizza expertise here, and for us to also introduce Roman style pizza to Austin, so I convinced them to move down as well so we could start this together.
What are each of your roles in the business?
Sal and Patricia operate the business day-to-day and I focus on strategy, marketing, finance and legal. Sal can taste a pizza and tell you where they got the ingredients from and how they cooked it - he is the equivalent of a second generation Forty-year BBQ pitmaster, but the pizza version of that guy. Patricia complements him in the kitchen and in managing the front of the house.
When did the ghost kitchen open and where does it service?
We opened early March. From the Ghostline Kitchen we can deliver to a roughly 5-mile radius from the airport to Bouldin Creek and from East Austin down to Onion Creek. You can also pickup and we can do catering orders for downtown Austin.
Do you have plans to open more ghost kitchens in Austin? Restaurants?
We just finished our first casual dining location at the Westbank Market in West Lake Hills and we’re excited for people to see it. We hired Gensler for the design and they did a great job creating a beautiful space. You’ll be able to walk in and choose from an unprecedented selection of artisan Roman and New York pizza slices along with salads, panini, beer and wine, gelato, and more. We have a few other locations we think would be great and we are planning to grow so we can serve more of Austin.
What do you foresee becoming your signature pizza?
I believe Roman style pizza is going to be the next big thing in pizza. Its dough offers something no other pizza dough does - in the flavor, the texture, and the versatility, but it takes a real expert to make it, which is why you can only find it in a few cities in the U.S.
Tell me more about Roman style pizza?
We wanted to create a truly authentic Roman-style pizza experience and import our Caputo flour for the dough from Italy. It’s a finely milled Italian flour with very high hydration that’s cold fermented for 72 hours. This produces a unique crust that is crispy and chewy, yet light and airy with lots of big bubbles, and it is also easier to digest. The closest dough to it is ciabatta. It is baked in square pans and sold by the slice in Italy, where it is called pizza al taglio, which translates to pizza “by the cut”. Roman style pizza typically also uses more specialty gourmet toppings than New York pizza. We’ll serve both by the pie and by the slice.
Anything you’d like to add?
It’s not often that you have a family with our Italian-American and New York pizza history moving to Austin and even more rare for someone to be making Roman style pizza - we hope that people will come by and try out both types of our pizza.