New Canaan Teen Launches Portable Pizzeria

Augusto Baldini, 17, a pure-blooded Italian who graduated from New Canaan High School two weeks ago, half-seriously proposed the idea of a portable pizzeria business with his family several weeks ago.

He’d been cooking pizza for his family in their wood-fired oven on the patio, as they like to do in the summer, and innocently asked, “What if I started this pizza business where I went house-to-house and made pizzas for people?”

“They said, ‘Sure, it could be a good idea,’ but we never really thought of it again,” Baldini recalled on a recent morning during an interview at New Canaan Library. “And then I had an event for my mom. She hosted a bunch of people over for work at our house, and she asked would I mind cooking pizzas for them? I said sure, of course. And a couple of the women there were like, ‘You should turn this into a business.’ ”

He has.

Baldini has formed a business plan and already started booking pizza parties for clients who are learning of his special talent by word-of-mouth. Reachable by phone (203-998-1099) and email (augusto.g.baldini@icloud.com), Baldini gathers and chops his own wood for the Ooni pizza oven that he loads into an SUV, along with a table and cooler with the freshmade dough he makes from scratch the night before an event, homemade sauce including basil from his family’s garden, fresh mozzarella and toppings (as requested by his clients), and arrives at their home (or other party location) one hour ahead of time to set up. He charges $375 for up to eight people and $42 per additional person, accepting a 50% non-refundable deposit and payment via Venmo or cash.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Baldini said. “It’s really fun to do something outside around a bunch of other people during the summer, especially, instead of just working a 9 to 5 in a store—not that that’s a bad job.”

Baldini said he’s hoping to build a recurring client base prior to heading to Colby College in the fall, where he intends to study pre-med. 

“It’s really fun to do,” he said. “I get to spend time with a lot of people, meet new people. I just had one [party] in Bronxville, the whole family was super nice and it’s a new relationship I just made.”

The portable pizzeria, and the pizza itself, are already building strong reputations for high quality and professionalism. 

Lisa Bodell, who hired Baldini for the Bronxville, N.Y. birthday party on her patio, heard about the business through a friend.

“We wanted to do something that was more experiential and everyone’s a foodie,” Bodell said. “It was a really fun time. While we had drinks and appetizers on the patio, he came early, set up his stove, all his toppings. In fact, he even asked us in advance what do we want on our pizza and was very consultative in terms of being a chef. He had it all set up and got started by asking everybody to come and just, ‘Hey, when you’re ready, come make your own pizza.’ ” 

The pizzas themselves cook quickly “and he serves them on an ongoing basis,” Bodell said.

“So you have a pizza and then you sit down and you come back and get another pizza and sit down and you just have a nice flowing dinner party with a little bit of an experience, and he gives you ideas, ways to put it together,” she said. “He serves it, he cleans everything up. It was turnkey, easy, not expensive and just something different than what you normally would do. It’s like when you have a personal chef that comes to your house, but this was easier—not as fussy, a little bit more casual and fun and perfect for the summer.”

Bodell added that she was happy to support a young person starting their own business. 

“It’s so great to support someone that’s driven and entrepreneurial,” she said. “We need more of that. And to be able to support someone like that was really fun.”

And so is the pizza itself. 

Jill Orent, vice president of global small kitchen appliances at The Cookware Company (known for its GreenPan line) and vice president of Les Dames d’Escoffier New York, was among the guests who tried Baldini’s pizza at the event at his house.

“I’m very well versed in pizza and pizza-makers and all that—I’ve tried lots of them—and I actually told Augusto the other day that I’m still dreaming about his pizza,” she said. “Literally, the pizza was unbelievable.”

Though there was “lots of delicious food and beverages” there, she said, “the highlight was for sure the pizza.”

“He’s really got it down to a science,” Orent said. “He got the pizza oven going by chopping his own wood… He had it down to an art form where he had all the pizza balls that were homemade dough, homemade sauce, mozzarella, and he was forming the dough. It wasn’t even mostly rolled out—he pulls it and stretches it and then, at the end, rolls it out and it’s this delicious thin crust pizza. He just puts his light layer of sauce on it. Some fresh mozzarella, some basil, and he knows exactly how long to cook it so it’s perfect every time.”

She added, “My husband doesn’t eat cheese so he [Baldini] said, ‘I’ll make you a special one if you want.’ It was just incredible.”

Orent went out for pizza about a week later and found it “not nearly as good” as Baldini’s.

Augusto Baldini himself attributes his pizza-making ability to growing up Italian.

“My whole family’s Italian,” he said. “It’s kind of why I’m making pizza and not chicken.”

A New York City native, Baldini was raised by Italian-born parents “in an Italian household,” he said, and has visited Italy countless times.

“In my whole family, my mom, sister and father are the only people that actually live in the U.S. with me,” he said. “Everyone else lives in Italy.” (His mother is renowned chef and author Silvia Baldini.)

In addition to building up the portable pizzeria, Baldini is working part-time this summer at Gelatissimo on Forest Street. He said that the new business is something he envisions returning to when he’s home from college.

“I was already talking about this,” he said. “Every time I come back from the summer, I would 100% love to do this with families that have already done it. If they’re hosting another thing, I’d just go back to them.”

Baldini added, “The idea of starting something like this on my own, it’s pretty empowering. It kind of just feels good.”

To make inquiries or book the portable pizzeria, reach Augusto Baldini by phone (203-998-1099) or email (augusto.g.baldini@icloud.com).

—Terry Dinan contributed to this article.