Giovanni Campisi has joined an exclusive club.

Campisi, who recently was crowned Canadian Pizza Chef of the Year at the Canadian Pizza Summit in Toronto in October, joins previous Chefs of the Year who have earned the crown multiple times: Diana Cline, Carlo Raillo and Giuseppe Cortinovis.

The energetic and hyper-creative Campisi, who is currently head pizza chef at Il Fornello Ristorante and Pizzeria in Oakville, Ont., earned himself a second trip to compete at Las Vegas Pizza Expo in March where he’ll face some of the world’s best pizza makers.

His first win was in 2022 and he was profiled in 2023 featuring his work at Red Door Cucina in Dundas, Ont.

The newest Chef of the Year, Campisi wowed the judges with his dessert pizza, “Il Dolce Nido” (“The Sweet Nest”), which featured a millefoglie pastry crust made with strawberry-infused double-zero flour topped with strawberries, mint, basil and caramel sugar nests containing white chocolate candy-coated eggs.

Il Fornello is an elegant Italian restaurant that seats about 125 with a bar and custom-built wood-fired pizza oven. When I visit, it is full of light streaming in from multiple large windows and features such as glowing schoolhouse-style lights and a mixture of black-and-white tile and polished wooden floors.

But back to that oven. It is toasty warm as Campisi helps bring it up to temperature. He’s come in to work to chat with us on his day off and decides to lend a hand. This oven was custom-built in the late 1980s at a time before wood-fired ovens were widely available, says Vito Martino, owner of the restaurant and a sister location in Richmond Hill, who took a quick break to say hello and express his pride in Campisi’s accomplishment.

The regional chain’s original restaurants opened in 1988. Fun fact: Il Fornello was the first pizza restaurant chain featured as a profile story in Canadian Pizza in 1995. Such dome-style ovens are now more widely available but back then they were a novelty.

“We were the first to serve pizza made in a wood-fired oven,” Martino says, taking time out from a busy morning to chat during our visit.

Typically, they make approximately 150 pizzas a day for a steady stream of seated guests and do take-out and catering jobs as well.

There are seven Il Fornello locations: Oakville and Richmond Hill are owned by Martino. The others are operated by franchisees. Some locations are corporate; others are operated by franchisees.

Martino says that after about 40 years in business, people still love wood-fired oven. “People’s palates are expanding,” he says, noting that Il Fornello also is known for accommodating customers’ various dietary needs. They offered gluten-free and vegan pizza long before it was common.

Campisi says he was hired, in part, to elevate the restaurant’s pizza menu. Under his guidance, they introduce at least one special pizza every month.

Campisi appreciates the modern equipment they have, including a dough rounder, which saves a lot of hands and help ensure a consistent product. “The machines help,” he says. They also free up time and energy to train and teach recipes to other pizza chefs.

 He is in charge of the dough recipe and one day a week another pizzaiolo makes the pizza. The kitchen team consists kitchen manager Nate Clark, two team members doing prep, three making entrées and two making appetizers.

At 53, he is one of the “elders” on staff he says with a smile.

His winning pizza, “The Sweet Nest,” was inspired by his work at Casa Mia Ristorante in St. Catharines, Ont., where he learned pastry from chef Olivia Mollica. “They made something similar there using chantilly cream,” he says. 

In the competition, Campisi used a reduction of cream and fresh strawberry juice. He dusted the crust with a mixture of brown and white sugar on top before baking. He then julienned mint and basil for bright contrast. The boiled and spun sugar nest was a last-minute idea.

Actually, the entire pizza in its final form was a surprise to the chef himself, who decided about a week before the competition that, win or lose, he wanted to present a dessert pizza. 

This is a trait shared by several chefs who compete year after year: they seem to be competing against themselves and testing the limits of their own creativity and skills. Carlo Raillo earned the top award first with a breakfast pizza, then a dessert pizza and again with a gluten-free pie.

We talk about Campisi’s unique career path. Immigrating to Canada from Italy in 2015, and opening Il Sorriso with then-partner Sofia Butera was a high point in Campisi’s life and career. He liked making decisions on all aspects of the business. He sees this time as an important step on his way up to becoming “the best he can be,” and, even though the partnership ended, he learned valuable lessons from the experience, such as the importance of clear communication.

The chef enjoys learning and networking. He recently took a course on making pasta with Patricia Santucci, who operates as Bella Farina. He taught her to make pinsa and she taught him to make pasta making, he says. And last year he catered an event by DIY celebrity Mike Holmes event for Ciao Bella Pizza Ovens.

Campisi is very happy in his current position. “That kitchen is the best,” he says, pointing nodding toward his coworkers. “Good people, good to work with.”

I ask him what he wants the general public to know about his work. “Some people think making pizza is easy,” he says, after some reflection. “There is a lot to it.” He says it’s important to focus on the flour. He likes to combine two flours: one strong flour and one medium flour. He prefers using Italian flours, finding some flours from Canada “too thin.” 

“If you use too much strong flour, the fermentation happens too quickly,” he says of the three-day fermentation process. That’s why combing two flours works well. 

The veteran pizza maker says he knows by touching the dough when it has come to temperature. When pressed for a number, he suggests, “23 degrees is the sweet spot.” 

His best advice to pizza chefs looking to succeed: “Never stop learning.”

“Il Dolce Nido”

Chef of the Year Giovanni Campisi’s “Il Dolce Nido” (“The Sweet Nest”) was the result of the ambitious chef pushing himself to the limit: “I knew I wanted to do a dessert pizza.”

Crust: 

• Strawberry-infused double-zero flour

• Millefoglie pastry made with dough fermented for three days 

Toppings: 

• Sugar base

• Strawberries

• Caramelized sugar nest

• White chocolate cream

• Mint

• Basil

• White chocolate candy-coated eggs 

You can find Giovanni Campisi on Instagram at @giopizza_n1