This NYC cook is the only feminine pizza manufacturer in Michelin’s guide

She is a pizza-a kitchen story.

Giorgia Caporuscio is breaking the sauce ceiling as the only female chef pizza presented in the Michelin guide.

The Italian native said when it comes to dough, touching a woman is better-especially for the Neapolitan style pizza she makes at her Hel’s culinary restaurant, Don Antonio.

“Women have less power in their hands and they can control that power more,” Caporuscio, 34, told the International Women’s Day on Saturday.

“So when you touch the Neapolitan pizza, whose dough is fermented at least 24 hours, you have to be really soft and gentle because you are pushing the air that was created.”

The Foodie Bible is far from the only cheers made in Don Antonio. The restaurant ranks seventh in SH.BA, and the 30th in the world, according to 50 Top Pizza.

Caporuscio grew up on a farm in Terracina, 35 miles from Rome and emigrated to New York to 19 to join her father, Roberto.

He was one of the first to introduce Napolitan style pizza in Manhattan when he opened Kesté Pizza & Vino on Bleecker Street in 2009.

She was the only woman in Eatery, and Italian masculine workers ridiculed her.

“Everyone was making fun of me, saying,” You are Italian, you don’t know how to make pasta or pizza, “so I said,” Why don’t tell them that I can make pizza better than them. “”

She began to look closely at her father to prepare the pies-and soon learned that making the pizza was in her genes.

“It came naturally,” said Caporuscio, who took over her father’s second restaurant at NYC, Don Antonio, in West 50th Street, in 2020.

“I really felt it was in my blood.”

When she was 22, she traveled to Naples to the Caputo Cup, known as the Pizza Olympics, with her father, who, unknown to her, signed her for a pizza-where she made history as the youngest woman she ever won.

In the competition, she made La Montanara-Pica deep fried with tomato sauce, smoked mozzarella, Pecorino Romano and Basil-Pay of Signature in Don Antonio, which has roots in women’s history.

“To help the economy of their home, women would fry pizza on the street while men were working,” she said.

Despite her early success, many still thought she could not stand in heat.

“A pizza manufacturer told me,” You can’t achieve the same success as a man because at one point you have to slow down to stay home with your children, “she recalled.

Caporuscio married Don Antonio’s bartender, Matteo, in 2022 and the couple have two children, Leo, 1, and Liam, 3 months.

“And in the last two years, I achieved much more than I have never done,” she said, smiling.

After over a decade of working with her father, she decided to take on Don Antonio with the help of Matteo.

“It was hard for me to get out of his shadow,” she said.

“But it was the right time to tell customers who I am.”

There were some who took some time to get used to a woman who made their pizza.

“When I was waiting for my first child and was pizza in the oven, a boy from Italy came to see who was making pizza,” she said.

“And first he was shocked because I was a woman and second was like,” Oh my Lord, you are waiting for a baby! “”

Now, Caporuscio is teaching young women who want to follow her steps, as a founding member of nonprofits in pizza.

“This is the biggest difference between us and male pizza manufacturers. They don’t like to share. They say all the time, ‘No, it’s my secret sauce.’

“But we have no secrets. We’re sharing everything.”