After revolutionizing our appreciation of artisan bread at her La Brea Bakery and earning awards for her pastry at Campanile restaurant, Nancy Silverton has turned her skills to America's favorite food: pizza.
She opened Pizzeria Mozza in the fall with celebrity chef Mario Batali and other partners to rave reviews. Diners pack the tables at the Highland Avenue eatery seven days a week, savoring the rustic, rich flavors of her pizzas.
"I always wanted the excuse to figure out how to make a decent pizza," said Silverton, working in the relative quiet of the pre-lunch rush at the Hollywood-area restaurant last week.
In May, she will launch a sister restaurant next door, Osteria Mozza, which will feature a mozzarella bar inspired by a restaurant in Rome. Also on her plate: the debut later this month of her seventh cookbook, "A Twist of the Wrist: Quick Flavorful Meals With Ingredients From Jars, Cans, Bags, and Boxes," written with Carolynn Carreno.
The accomplished chef and small-business owner opened the acclaimed Campanile in 1989 with chef Mark Peel, her husband at the time, and business partner Manfred Krankl.
When she couldn't find an acceptable loaf for the restaurant, she spent thousands of hours working to perfect her sourdough and then opened the tiny La Brea Bakery in the same building as Campanile.
Her culinary accomplishments and business successes -- she and her former partners sold La Brea Bakery for more than $70 million to an Irish food conglomerate, IAWS Group of Dublin -- have earned the hardworking chef the Leadership Award and the Woman Business Owner of the Year Award from the Los Angeles chapter of the National Assn. of Women Business Owners. Silverton will accept the awards at the group's 21st annual Leadership & Legacy awards luncheon Friday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. More than 1,000 people will attend the event that also will honor other local women for their achievements. For more information, visit www.nawbola.org.
It also will be the one of the few lunch hours that Silverton will miss at the restaurant, where she usually works daily double shifts, although she has just started to take off Sunday and Monday nights.
"I haven't quite made the leap to do a whole day off," Silverton said.
She also is still involved with La Brea Bakery, which now distributes its breads in eight countries, touring the world as a spokeswoman and serving as a recipe consultant.
