Pizza Pizza

Stella Rossa’s Pizza Chef is A Freakin’ Fat Duck Vet and Arzak Apprentice!

Photo: Carole Dixon via Feast

In case the restaurant’s connection with the chains of La Grande Orange/Lettuce Entertain You has you thinking that Stella Rossa is merely a corporate-hatched plan to sling pizza to tourists (like we did), Feast fills us in on the news that opening chef Jeff Mahin is a freakin’ Fat Duck vet who worked with Juan Mari Arzak! Who knew?

The chef, like a few former scientists of note, left the chemistry field to work with Heston Blumenthal and launch his culinary career, eventually ending up next door to M Street Kitchen (nee La Grande Orange). The chef’s expertise and avant-garde approach results in dough he spent a year studying, put in a non-traditional oven, and coming out in recipes like burrata and grilled grapes and a purple kale pie. Says Mahin, “[Blumenthal] showed me how hard it was do truly simple food.”

Former Fat Duck Employee Opens Unique Pizzeria in Santa Monica [Feast]

Stella Rossa’s Pizza Chef is A Freakin’ Fat Duck Vet and Arzak Apprentice!