Aldo Dean had a clear vision when he opened the first pizza restaurant in Downtown Memphis six years ago: Open a New York style pizzeria with an open kitchen.
There was only one problem: He did not know one thing about making pizza.
“I pitched my idea to investors and they said, alright how do we go about it?” recalls Dean, affectionately called Aldo by most people in Memphis. “I don’t know, but we are going to learn how to make pizza.”
Later that year, Aldo and dough master John Pearson travelled to the American Institution of Baking in Manhattan, Kansas. They enrolled in a pizza class and learned how to make different types of dough from cracker crust and thin crust New York style to the Chicago’s signature deep-dish pie.
For Aldo’s Pizza Pie, they crafted a hybrid dough with a unique flour blend. Traditional pizza from Naples , and New York style pizza is 100 percent high gluten flour.
“What we did with ours is that we blended the two together,” Aldo said. “We made our own proprietary dough blend.”
The popularity of the first Aldo’s downtown spurred the second location on Cooper Street in the former location of the beloved Two-Way Inn. With the help of the landlord, they remodeled the interior, opened-up the kitchen, and added a larger dining area, a bar, and a patio on the roof.
Along with the proprietary dough, both Aldo’s use a deck oven to cook the pizza instead of an air impingement oven used by many other pizza makers.
“It is a longer process because you have to be actively involved in turning the pizzas in the oven,” Aldo said. “The pizzas take roughly 12 minutes to cook.”
Authenticity is important for Aldo and his employees, which is why most of what they serve is made in-house. Ashley McEntire, the general manager at Aldo’s on Cooper, said they make their own sauces and mozzarella. Coming up soon: Aldo’s branded cheese blend.
People from all over the Memphis area come to eat Aldo’s signature pizzas. They all sell well, but the Vodka pie is a favorite.
“Our Vodka sauce is something nobody else does,” McEntire said.
Other restaurant developments include a new building that will serve as a commissary kitchen, expansion probably in East Memphis, and more synergistic menus between the downtown and Cooper locations.
“We are doing Panini sandwiches here, and we are going to do them downtown,” Aldo said. “We just got a griddle here, so I think we are going to start doing cheesesteaks here, as well.”
Catherine Levasseur 