Olio Pizzeria Opens In L.A.'s Grand Central Market
Comments (1)
The “Margherita” is one of the classic pizzas customers can find at the newly opened Olio Wood Fired Pizzeria in DTLA’s Grand Central Market (Kelli Shiroma / Neon Tommy).
This is the company’s second location. The original location is in Hollywood, where the company started in October 2010, according to founder and executive chef Brad Kent. He explains that there are actually several meanings behind Olio’s name.
“It goes back to my education in marketing,” says the University of Southern California (USC) alum. “I wanted a name that was easily recognizable; I wanted something that people could spell and pronounce. And I love the definition of the word — olio in English means ‘a group of works of art.’ And in Italian, olio means ‘oil.’ If you put oil in your dough, the freshness of the oil will impact the formation; when it comes to taste, the quality of the olive oil is also critical.”
There are different meanings behind the Olio name (Kelli Shiroma / Neon Tommy).
“I was a pre-architecture major at USC when I started in 1987,” Kent says. “One of my classes [focused on] Downtown Los Angeles, and we went through a lot of buildings and neighborhoods. They probably pointed it [the market] out; it’s been here since 1917.”
And it was at USC that Kent first had the dream to one day create his own pizza company.
“I was sitting in a micro economics upper-division class in 1991, reading Gourmet magazine instead of paying attention,” he laughs. “I was trying to focus on what I was doing to do with my life.”
“My was all about food,” Kent reflects, “but I didn’t know you could make a career in cuisine. At that point, I decided I wanted to open a restaurant at some point in my life. From my professor of marketing, I realized that I had to do something unique and I had to create a niche; it needed to be something that was going to be profitable and easy to produce.”
When he was in college, Kent went on his first trip overseas with his mom to visit Naples. He recalls seeing pizza being made and the concept of using the oliera—an oilcan—to personalize each pizza resonated with him.
“There’s the art of the olive oil — the pizza maker lifts the oliera to make a beautiful, sweeping, circular motion over the pizza like a signature, which makes it so personal … they’re telling the pizza, ‘You’re ready to go into that oven now,’” Kent says. “And when pizzas come out of the oven, they’re dressed in olive oil in the same fashion, which is an indication for the customer that this pizza is ready for consumption and the pizza maker’s putting his signature on it again.”
This concept intrigued Kent so much that he still remembered it as he was coming up with ideas for his own restaurant. He had narrowed down his potential product to three categories: barbecue, pizza or Mexican food. But, after doing lots of research on barbecue, Kent ultimately chose pizza because he “had no patience for barbecue.”
“I can’t sit in front of a smoker for 18 hours and get the immediate gratification that I need because I have a very low attention span,” he laughs.
But that’s not to say that pizza making is simple or that it doesn't require patience. Kent and his team take great care and pride in every single pizza that they create.
“What makes this company unique is the dedication of our staff,” Kent says. “Most of our staff has been with us for multiple years. It’s because they are so highly dedicated to what we believe in — we want to be a neighborhood pizzeria; we want people to come back and have relationships with us, as well as with our food.”
“To get something good, you have to have some patience and attention to detail,” he adds. “Each time a pizza comes out of the oven, it’s an immediate gratification, but the feedback is immediate as well. Was it perfectly topped, was it perfectly stretched? Was the dough made right, was the dough put in at the right temperature? Were the pieces of wood the right size? There’s a lot that goes into making a pizza.”
Besides the great care and hard work ethic of his staff members, Kent says the pizzas made at Olio include high-quality ingredients that can be reflected in every bite.
“When you taste our pizza, you’ll see why our pizza is different,” he says. “The crust is really delicate because we handle it so gently. You’ll see that our sauce has a really sharp, fresh, tomato flavor because we’re careful about selecting the right tomatoes and seasoning them appropriately to highlight their tomato-ness. Yes, it’s [pizza] just dough, cheese and sauce, but there’s a lot that goes into it and a perfect pizza is hard to make.”
Of course, the art of the olive oil incorporated into making each pizza contributes to the eatery’s uniqueness factor as well.
“That idea of the oliera resonated with me for so many years; I remembered it in 2007, when I came up with the idea for this,” Kent says. “I wanted that oil to be an important part of it [my business]. I found the oilcans from Naples, Italy. The ones we use here are tin lined and there’s copper and brass on the outside. Olio is more to me than just a name … the deeper meaning is personalizing each pizza to create a group of works of art. That really indicates what we’re all about.”
Olio’s signature pizza is currently the “Margherita Plus.” Considered a “specialty pizza,” this savory creation features crushed tomatoes, burrata, fresh basil and basil-infused olive oil.
“It’s similar to a classic Margherita pizza, but instead of having fresh mozzarella, it has a cheese called burrata,” Kent explains. “‘Burrata’ means ‘buttered’ in Italian. The cheese is fresh mozzarella that’s pulled into strings like taffy and mixed with an Italian cream … it’s a very rich cheese.”
The “Wild Mushroom & Crisp Prosciutto” pizza includes three different types of mushrooms (Kelli Shiroma / Neon Tommy).
“They’re [the mushrooms] fire roasted in the same oven before we even assemble the pizza,” Kent says. “The sauce is a blend of caramelized onions and a puree of roasted garlic. Our garlic is roasted very slowly for a long time, so you can taste an inherent sweetness in the sauce and it’s seasoned with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. The cheese is a truffle cheese and we finish the pizza with a smoked prosciutto.”
Other pizzas currently on the Olio menu include more traditional ones like “Pepperoni,” as well as more unique ensembles like “Wood Fired Fruit Danish,” (fresh fruit, vanilla bean ricotta custard and caramelized sugar) a breakfast selection. But there will soon be new additions to the menu, Kent says.
“We opened with a very limited menu—just six offerings—but we’ll be expanding that to a full menu in less than a month,” he confirms.
Right now, Kent is focusing on the new menu creations and garnering a stronger following at Olio’s new location. Being part of the Grand Central Market is very special experience, he says, because the vendors there have the same outlook on food.
“There’s a few vendors that have been here for generations; they’re so authentic and are so focused on quality,” Kent says. “When you talk to them about food and what they do—even the newer vendors, when you talk to them about what they do—you’re now part of this culture of people that are insane about quality and very authentic. That’s what I’m enamored by with this space—being surrounded by people like that, and the fact that they’re bringing more of those people in here means it’s going to get even better.”
