Purple potatoes on a pizza? Palatine pizzaiolo wins California pizza contest
Purple potatoes may not be the first thing you think of when it comes to pizza toppings. But they recently helped a Palatine pizzaiolo win a first-place prize and $5,000 in the Real California Pizza Contest in Napa, California.
Giovanni Labbate, the owner of Tievoli Pizza Bar in Palatine, brought home a first-place trophy in the "plant-forward" category for his "Sunset in Sonoma" pie during the 5th annual Real California Pizza Contest held earlier this month at The Culinary Institute of America at Copia.
"It's incredible and very validating," Labbate said. "It gives you some assurance that you're doing something right."
The national contest features three categories - Cal-Mex, The Real Californian and Plant-Forward - with a requirement that contestants use California-produced cheese. Labbate submitted pizzas in all three categories online, where four finalists in each category were chosen based on name, description, photo, use of California cheese and flavor expectation.
When "Sunset in Sonoma" was chosen as one of the four finalists in its category, Labbate and his wife Adrianna were flown to California for a live bake-off competition, where they won the category and $5,000.
The pizza, which is a colorful ode to Northern California's wine country, features Tievoli's signature dough topped with a garlic confit cream sauce, California mozzarella & white cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, purple potatoes, sautéed button & shiitake mushrooms, topped with pesto ricotta dollops, fresh parsley & parmesan cheese.
The inspiration came from the last time he competed in the competition in 2018. He took first place then, too, while working with Billy Bricks Pizza, for whom he was director of operations for about a decade. After the contest, he and his wife visited a winery in Sonoma County and saw a colorful sunset.
"We saw all these colors. So for this, we tried to come up with something to duplicate it with purples and greens and yellows," he said.
Labbate is a second-generation pizza maker who said he was helping his father make pizzas when he was 10 years old. In fact, when his mother left the hospital after he was born, their first stop was his father's pizzeria.
"I've literally been in the restaurant business all my life," Labbate said.
He and his wife opened Tievoli, which is "I love it" spelled backward, about six months ago at 44 W. Palatine Road. He hopes to expand the brand beyond the one location and food truck he and his family operate.
Labbate said they will return to California in October for a Tournament of Champions, which features all the past winners over the last five competitions.