An NYC Pizza Restaurant Built On Trading - YouTube

-The pandemic kind of changed everything for me.

I barter with other people.

So, in exchange of pizza,

I get whatever people has to offer --

homemade food, or other creations,

arts, drawings, or even experiences.

♪♪

My name is Gabriele Lamonaca.

I'm from Rome.

And I'm a Roman-style pizza maker.

Before the pandemic, I had a very well-paid job.

Everything was coming along pretty well.

But then, the pandemic hit.

Everything stopped.

And I found, suddenly, myself at home.

And I also find myself without a job.

And I always try to figure out how to react to this

in a positive way, and in a constructive way.

So, that's why, while at home, I decided to start making pizza.

What I wanted to do was to kind of trying

to re-establish the social ties in new and creative ways.

I push them to create something,

and they give me something in return for my pizza.

Every barter is unique.

Every barter is an experience

that really can't be repeated in the same way.

When I was 18, I came here in New York.

I realized that something was missing

that I really wanted to see here,

which was Roman-style pizza.

It's the staple food in Rome.

It's square, cooked in a pan.

And if you go to Rome,

it's available at every corner in every street.

Chances are, if you throw a stone in Rome,

you're gonna hit a Roman-style pizza.

And I came up with the idea of Unregular Pizza because,

here in New York,

the regular pizza it's the regular slice,

and most basic slice that you can find.

It usually is, like, a dollar slice

that you eat late at night when you're drunk.

And so, I wanted to do the complete opposite of that,

unique and weird, even, combinations of toppings.

So, I put the whole burrata on each slice.

I put the nduja sauce.

I put guanciale, special kinds of cheeses.

For me, at least, it's unregular.

I am the most disorganized person ever,

especially in the kitchen.

I'm gonna show you the process

of making the dough from scratch.

It's a 72-hour ferment dough.

The maturation process lets a few other flavors

and other perfumes to develop.

Okay, so, we have a few barters lined up for today.

So, we're gonna have to prepare a few pizzas.

We have our dough,

which has been in the fridge for three days.

So, we're gonna cook this as it is,

just with a little bit of olive oil on top.

If I were to put the toppings right now,

they would burn, because this pizza,

it takes about 13-14 minutes to cook,

because it is cooked in a pan.

so it takes more time to do it.

And it's also cooked at a lower temperature.

Done? Yes. Beautiful.

Perfect.

Now, we do the burra pizza cafona.

So, cafona means "tacky and rude."

I was making pizza every day out of my oven in my Midtown studio.

And my girlfriend suggested to open up an Instagram profile.

And I would post pictures and videos of my creations,

so that I would have been ready with the following base

for when I would open my own pizzeria.

What happened next is that friends noticed

the pizzas that I was making, so they started asking me.

And they wanted to buy a pizza.

So, I kind of, like, felt bad charging them.

So, I said to them, "I would love to meet up.

I would love to get out of my apartment.

I will give you the pizza.

Give me something else that you make at home."

I started, like, doing barters every day --

every week, and then every day.

And suddenly, I started receiving

requests from strangers.

And that's when I understood

that the barter was really something

that was gonna go somewhere.

Perfect.

I put a lot of deep flavors -- spicy hot honey,

and I put a whole burrata on each slice.

And then, nduja sauce.

So, it's really pork over pork over sweet and over spicy.

It's just a lot going on.

I called it "cafona."

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Ciao. How are you doing?

-Good.

Nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you, finally. -Finally. Thanks for --

-I've been waiting for this day for two months now.

Oh, my gosh.

What did you bring?

-I brought you some buttered chicken.

-Buttered chicken. Okay.

-Buttered chicken, it's from India.

-Thank you very much. Yes.

You know, these requests grew every day.

At some point, the New York Post did an article about my barters.

I did so many during the past year.

I think I did like at least 150.

-So, I have some Haitian red snapper

that I learned how to make because my husband is Haitian.

-Wow. Beautiful. Thank you.

-Yes. Thank you. It's a pleasure to meet you.

-Finally, yes.

So, I came here in 2008 to go to college.

The original plan was to become a doctor,

so I went to college, and studied chemistry.

But then, while I was doing chemistry,

I actually was working in restaurants as a waiter.

So, I just couldn't wait to go to my job at night,

being a waiter, because that's what I had the most fun with.

Then, at a certain point, I decided that that was

what I wanted to do in my life --

something with the food industry,

you know, something with restaurants.

Moving towards actually making the food,

it was something that made sense for me.

I'm gonna make a buffalo chicken pizza.

So, we prepare fried chicken with cornflakes.

And then, we're gonna put it on top of pizza

with Buffalo mozzarella.

This pizza was made for a barter during Super Bowl.

It made sense to do something that's so American,

like fried chicken, for Super Bowl.

And it worked.

People loved it.

During the pandemic,

I was living in Midtown, in a small studio.

And around me, there was silence,

and there was no one,

and all my friends left the city.

So, what I wanted to do was kind of trying

to re-establish the social ties in new and creative ways --

in the street, in real life --

and to share what we created for each other.

♪♪

Alberto.

No.

[ Laughs ]

I adore!

Tell me what you brought.

-I brought a beautiful print from my new series.

Beautiful. Oh, my God.

-And the book.

-Beautiful. Okay. Nice.

I made you Buffalo chicken, okay?

Thank you. -Thank you.

Thank you so much.

-Getting out of the apartment, and meeting up with real people,

I would not give it for granted.

It's a very deep and meaningful experience, I'd say.

♪♪

This is for the burra pizza Bolognese.

This is a broccoli rabe puree

that we're gonna use instead of tomato sauce.

So, it's gonna become a green pizza.

"Bolognese" means it's from Bologna,

which is a region in southern Italy.

And a typical dish from Bologna is broccoli rabe with sausage.

And they make it with pasta, with orecchiette pasta.

So, I translated that into pizza.

Our barterer is vegetarian,

so we're not gonna use sausage.

We're going to put cherry tomato confit.

We're gonna add burrata, which is also Bolognese.

Sundried tomato sauce.

And then, we're gonna put fried orecchiette.

So, it's gonna be like a crunch.

I was born in Rome, and I grew up

right outside Rome, in the suburbs.

I always loved to eat.

I was always a little bit chubby during my whole life.

And actually, my nickname in school,

it's always been "ciccio," which means "chubby."

My parents always cooked at home, especially my dad.

So, I took this passion for food from him, and all his family.

My dad is from Bologna, from a very small town next to Bari.

People in the south of Italy, usually they're more hospitable,

and they like to share their food with other people,

even though they're not part of the family, necessarily.

And I tried to bring those things back here,

in New York, in my lifestyle.

So, we just did three barters,

and now, we're going from Harlem to Union Square.

We're going to the Unregular Pizza store.

Welcome to Unregular Pizza.

This is our bright, and happy, and fun store.

We're just four days from opening.

So, we're in a little bit in a crazy, chaotic time,

taking care of the last-minute things.

So, here, we have a little wall of barters.

This was actually a clay class

that I received in exchange for pizza.

So, the barter started off with the exchange of pizza

with any other homemade food.

But then, it evolved into any other thing,

and then, even experiences.

Like, for example, I did a horseback riding class

in exchange for pizza.

Or, recently, I did a staycation in a hotel.

We're gonna keep doing the barters here in the store.

So, once per day, someone comes in at about four o'clock.

We do the barter in store.

So, we exchange pizza for whatever people decide to bring.

You know, the barter really became the soul

of Unregular Pizza,

so we decided to keep this barter going,

even because it's such a fun and engaging experience.

And we want to keep that alive forever and ever.

It's just an amazing feeling for me

to sit here, in my own pizzeria,

a brick and mortar store.

And it's the realization of a long-time dream that I have.

All the efforts that not only me,

but all the people around me,

have put in towards this project.

It is just amazing to see it alive.

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