By Tracy Morin
On July 7, Women in Pizza and PMQ will bring together some of the brightest minds in pizza for our first female-paneled webinar, “Pizza Women On the Rise: Claiming Your Space in the Pizza Community.” Co-moderated by Alexandra “Azie” Mortati of Women in Pizza and PMQ associate editor Tracy Morin, the webinar will gather three female pizzeria industry standouts—Giorgia Caporuscio, master pizzaiola and owner of Don Antonio; Erica Bell, lead pizzaiola and general manager at Double Zero Pie & Pub; and Audrey Kelly, owner and pizzaiola of Audrey Jane’s Pizza Garage—as they share the challenges they’ve faced, the victories they’ve achieved and the progress still to be made.
This live online event is free and open to all. Click here now to register and join us at 2 p.m. ET on July 7!
In this special series of profiles, we will learn more about each of the women featured in the webinar.
Not everyone who excels in pizza was born into the craft. Oftentimes, taking a circuitous route to pizza mastery generates key skills for thriving in a high-pressure pizzeria environment—even when you’re overseeing a twice-ranked Top 50 Pizza establishment in one of the most competitive restaurant cities in the United States.
A background in culinary event productions—think beer festivals, art shows and music festivals—first exposed Erica Bell, general manager of Double Zero Pie & Pub in Las Vegas, to the culinary world. “It was an environment that is kind of harsh, a little bit unforgiving and unreasonable sometimes, but it taught me a lot,” she recalls. “My job was to hang out with these chefs and watch them and see what they needed. Being me, I was just like, ‘Hey, what is that? How do you cook that? Teach me.’ So they’d give me food and show me things!”
Later, after working in downtown Las Vegas, handling pop-up events and focusing on food and beverage, Bell segued into opening bars and restaurants, helping other chefs continue to grow and learn. While working with Vegas Test Kitchen during COVID, she was introduced to major names in pizza. “John Arena [of Metro Pizza], Chris Decker [of Truly Pizza], and Alex and Dani White [of Yukon Pizza]—I got to work closely with them, watch them, and they’re just the nicest people,” Bell says. “They welcomed me into the test kitchen with open arms.”
It wasn’t too difficult of a leap, of course. As Bell says, “Who doesn’t love pizza? It was an easy pairing in my head.”
When Bell got a heads up that Double Zero Pie & Pub in Las Vegas was making a change in management, she met with chef Michael Vakneen [of Truly Pizza], who was then a partner at the restaurant. “I just jumped in and took off,” she says. “My pizza making experience before I got to Double Zero was pretty minimal. I would make pizza randomly with pizza chefs that I knew. I didn’t know dough. I didn’t know hand stretching. I didn’t know anything about fermentation. I learned everything as fast as I could when I took over as general manager for Double Zero. We shortly relaunched the restaurant, and I jumped right into learning everything about the kitchen, because I was passionate about cooking and culinary.
“As soon as I put my hands on some dough, I realized, ‘Oh, this is really special and unique,’” she continues. “I didn’t know this side of pizza. The internal nerd in me came out, and I started putting my nose into recipe books and learning. Chef Michael Vakneen was a huge influence on me and a big mentor. He taught me everything about that menu and why he did everything he did with the dough. Then I just took it and ran. Now, I’ve been managing the whole restaurant, front of house and back of house, for the last two years, and I started competing, too.”
Bell clearly made a quick study: Under her leadership, Double Zero landed on 50 Top Pizza’s list of best pizzerias in the U.S.—not once, but twice (2024 and 2025). PMQ recently chatted with Bell about her life-changing segue into pizza, her work with the Women in Pizza organization, and how even late bloomers can become formidable pizza masters.
PMQ: How did you become involved with Women in Pizza?
Erica Bell: Women in Pizza was really kind of a big deal for me. At Pizza Expo—I think it was 2024 or 2023—I was walking around with chef Michael on the competition floor, and we ran into chef Leah Scurto [of Pizza Leah]. She was like, “So you make pizza?” I was like, “No, not really. I make my lunch at the restaurant a couple times here and there.” She kept saying, “So you’re a pizza maker.” I said, “Uh, I mean, I guess if you say so.” She said again, “You’re a pizza maker.”
I don’t think Leah even knows that story. But I need to call her out, because in that moment, when she kept saying it to me, it was like, “Okay, cool. I’m a pizza maker.”
From that Pizza Expo—my first Pizza Expo—I just got even more hooked on what pizza is in all its forms, what people do with it, how inspiring it is and how it connects you to people.
PMQ: What do you love about working in pizza?
Bell: People are very, very supportive. The pizza community is different than any other community I’ve been involved in. I’ve had a lot of cool jobs, from the medical field to event production, meeting all sorts of different people and different groups. But the pizza community really takes the cake, because everybody cares. At least, the people that I keep around me really care. They want everybody to be lifted up.
Tony Gemignani, John Arena and Chris Decker are three guys I really look at when I think about pushing people and getting people to learn and achieve more. Of course, the list of people who’ve influenced my short pizza career—I’ve only solely been in pizza for the last four years, though I dabbled in it a little before that—is long. Chef Michael really helped me, too. I got connected with Stephanie Swane, then fan-girled when I met Laura Meyer and Marisol Doyle [of Leña]. It’s just endless. With Women in Pizza, it’s just this community I’ve been needing my whole life, and I’m 40 years old now.
PMQ: What has been your experience with Women in Pizza since you got involved, and why is it important for you and everyone in the industry?
Bell: I’m just a huge advocate for women in culinary—and, of course, women in pizza. I will stand on the rooftops and promote my friends who are just killing it, or my friends who got off the struggle bus because they couldn’t get their dough right, and then they got out of it, they figured it out, they problem-solved, and they reached another level of success.
I’m just that big cheerleader. I want everybody to win, because it’s hard. It’s hard to be a woman in this industry. It’s hard labor. It’s taxing mentally and emotionally, and then you’ve got to manage a team, you’ve got to manage a catering truck, all these things.
I think the biggest takeaway from Women in Pizza is just shining a light on the women all across the United States and what they’re doing. These huge gatherings of women, creating these chat groups and these ways to connect, is all about giving women a platform and a voice.
We have the Vegas Pizza Festival out here, and there’s a Women in Pizza booth, so I’ll be one of the main chefs operating that booth this year. And it’s great just having the platform through social media, email blasts and other things—leading people to opportunities to learn from each other and grow and support one another. It’s huge.
PMQ: Do you have any advice for women who are aspiring to make a career in pizza or who are just getting started?
Bell: I think the thing that motivates me every single day is that I’m not a competitive person. I’m a collaborative person.
I think every single human being will have a moment of insecurity or envy or whatever it is. They feel pressured because they’re pressuring themselves. They feel pressure because of their business or their big dreams, and they don’t know what to do. But you’ve got to look at the people around you whom you can connect with and find motivation in all of their hard work.
You also have to understand that working in a kitchen, especially when you’re working with dough, you cannot not be thinking about your dough. You cannot not be thinking about the prep time, the weather, your environment. It’s endless. There isn’t really a break. That’s why you have to lean on your community.
You’ve really got to dive into recipe books and cookbooks, listen to podcasts, go on YouTube. When I was figuring stuff out, I didn’t even know the verbiage. I had to look up the difference between biga and poolish. I had to look up sourdough versus other pre-ferments and learn the reasons why. Why does a higher protein flour give you this result? Why does a lower protein flour give you this result?
I needed to learn all that stuff quickly, because I was sitting at the table with some pizza champions who had opened several different pizza restaurants. I wanted to gain as much knowledge from them but also have thoughtful conversations so I didn’t feel discouraged.
I’m not like most people. I can compartmentalize insecurities really well, and I can push through the scary stuff around just not knowing anything. I put pen to paper, and I study. Just be open to teaching yourself and learning from any sort of media or in person.
Also, mentorship, especially over the phone or in person, will get you through the harder elements of learning pizza or dough or what products you need to use. I’m a huge advocate of mentorship. I have several different mentors, including James Beard Award-winning mentors. I even listen to people who have less experience than me, just to see what they’ve achieved. It reminds me of where I was, and it gets me remotivated on some things that maybe I put a pin in to come back to later.
Really, at the end of the day, for anyone coming up who is new to this world, it’s so easy to make a phone call or shoot a DM or a text message to somebody that you think you might get along with or somebody that might be able to teach you something. Just ask a bunch of questions. Don’t feel like they’re stupid. Don’t box yourself in because you’re feeling insecure or worried or wondering if they’re going to think you don’t belong. Get all that stuff out of the way and just focus on what you’re trying to achieve.
Tracy Morin is PMQ’s associate editor.
