Hapa Pizza draws on Italian, Indonesian, Thai, Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean ingredients to build creative, innovative pizzas and side items

Concept:

We came up with the concept for Hapa Pizza somewhat by accident. My wife is a fourth-generation Asian American, so her family ate a lot of Americanized food, including pizza, burgers, etc. On the other hand, I’m a second-generation Asian American, so our family ate exclusively Asian food in our household growing up. When we got married, I wanted to learn how to make food that she enjoyed and ended up doing a deep dive into the fascinating world of pizza making.

One day, we were hosting a pizza party for some friends, and I thought to myself, “There are so many delicious meats, sauces and veggies in Asian cuisine that I’ve never seen on pizza before. I bet these would taste really great on a pizza!” So, we made a pizza with some bulgogi we found in the fridge, and it was a hit with our friends. In fact, they liked it so much, they encouraged us to try selling them at our local farmers market, which is how Hapa Pizza was born.

Pizza Style:

We began with Neapolitan style pizza mainly because of the type of oven I bought. They’re designed for cooking Neapolitan pizza at really high temps. Additionally, Neapolitan pizza worked great for the fast pace of the farmers market because we were able to pump out pizzas in just 90 seconds. I also really liked the simplicity and elegance of Neapolitan pizza. Neapolitan dough consists of just flour, water, yeast and salt, relying more on technique and process for flavor and texture rather than other additives.

Over time, however, we began looking for ways to adapt the Neapolitan style to the American palate by blending qualities we enjoyed from other styles of pizza. For example, we loved the soft chew and light, airy crumb of Neapolitan dough. However, we also liked to have a bit more crisp and sturdiness so it doesn’t flop and get soupy in the middle. So, we developed a sort of hybrid dough that is 68-percent hydration, uses a Biga preferment and is cooked at an intermediate temperature between N.Y. style and Neapolitan style in order to get good oven spring while also cooking a little longer on the stone to get some more crisp.

Pizza Recipe Development:

Recipe development at Hapa is very much a team effort. While it started with me adapting my favorite Asian foods that I cooked and ate at home onto pizza, we’ve now been evolving our approach to creating altogether new flavor combinations drawn from a variety of Asian cuisines. We now have a diverse team of talented chefs who draw from their unique cultural backgrounds and experiences to blend Italian, Indonesian, Thai, Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean ingredients together to build these really creative, innovative pizzas and sides. For example, our head chef, Elden Chan, just created this amazing Citrus Panzanella, which is a Tuscan-style bread salad soaked in house pesto and yuzu butter, blood oranges, lemon zest, whipped burrata, dill, shiso mint syrup and sesame almonds. An upcoming pizza we look forward to serving is a Thai steak pizza made with a tangy sweet tamarind and fish sauce base, topped with mozz, steak tartare, mint, cilantro and a Thai roasted rice blend. A lot of these combinations sound really crazy and confusing, but they actually complement and balance each other really well, which is what I think a lot of our guests love about our food.  It’s pizza they can’t find anywhere else, plus we change our menu every month and a half, so there’s always something new to try!