[NOTE: Having been originally posted in April 2014, much of this page is out of date, but I’m leaving it here mostly unchanged for posterity—for now. For a more up-to-date ABOUT page, see adamkuban.com]
Hi, I’m Adam Kuban. You may remember me from such websites as Serious Eats or Slice, the now-defunct pizza weblog I founded more than 10 years ago.
I’m kind of a huge pizza nerd.
And, like most amateur pizza nerds, I’ve always dreamed of serving my pizza to the public in some way. I’ve now done that — initially through an apprenticeship at Paulie Gee’s in Greenpoint, and now I’m exploring the world of bar-style pizza with this pop-up.
So I’m the guy behind this thing, but I’ve also got some pretty talented crew members helping out. First off, HUGE props to Matt & Emily Hyland, the owners of EMILY, who have been extremely generous and helpful with the use of their restaurant during its off hours. You’ll probably meet Emily when you come in, since she serves as host during the pop-ups, and you can see Matt on oven duty, cooking the bar pizzas. Thanks to our wonderful bartenders, who keep guests libated. Thank you to the EMILY prep crew, who slot in some of my prep work into their daily routine, for which I am amazingly, eternally grateful. And special shout-out to Tim Nguyen, who enthusiastically helped troubleshoot the adaptation of my recipe to the wood oven when we first started testing this thing out in early 2014.
BUT… THE BIGGEST THANKS AND PRAISE go to my wife, without whose support and exasperated nudging I would not be pizza-ing anywhere in this city. She prodded me to try my hand at this stuff and then uncomplainingly took on the extra hours of solo parenting that came with me being away doing pizza. 🙏🙏🙏
Wait… who’s Margot!?
How could I forget!? Margot’s Pizza is named for my daughter (shown here at about 15 months old).
What exists of my “professional” pizza career is the result of a promise I made to her minutes after she was born.