By Charlie Pogacar
When PMQ reached out to Ken Forkish to schedule an interview, the retired baker and pizza maker said he wasn’t immediately available. He was in Naples at the 50 Top Pizza world ceremony, where the restaurant he founded, Portland, Oregon-based Ken’s Artisan Pizza, was honored as the 27th best pizzeria in the world.
“Going to Naples was awesome,” Forkish told PMQ after his trip. “It’s so rewarding to see [Ken’s Artisan Pizza’s continued success] because when I sold it and retired [in 2022], it was at the point where I felt like I had achieved all my objectives for the food. The last pizza that I made before I left, I said, ‘This is perfect. There’s really nothing left that I’ve got to offer.’ So, I felt like: mission accomplished.”
When Forkish retired, he sold Ken’s Artisan Pizza to trusted employees. Chef Vince Krone and operator Peter Kost now run the restaurant, which this year was named the No. 5 pizzeria in the U.S. by 50 Top Pizza. Forkish’s feeling that he left the institution in great hands has helped smooth his transition into retirement. Now in his sixties, he lives in Hawaii year-round. Does he miss baking and making pizza professionally?
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“No,” Forkish said. “Some people would, but that’s not me. I have other interests. I’m never bored….When I go back to Portland, I love visiting Ken’s Artisan Pizza. It’s great to go in there as the founder and former owner, but, no, I don’t miss running it. It’s all hard. None of this is easy. I worked hard for a long time.”
Forkish’s legacy extends beyond the renown he earned at Ken’s Artisan Bakery (opened in 2001) and Ken’s Artisan Pizza. His first two books—Flour Water Salt Yeast (2012) and The Elements of Pizza (2016)—have become industry standards. Many modern pizza makers learned the craft with Forkish’s work serving as their Bible. The books, in Forkish’s own words, sought to demystify the baking process. He felt like many of the baking and pizza-making books he’d read up to that point could be practically impenetrable to the average reader.
“There have been a lot of myths around baking, and I wanted to dispel those and explain it in a way that home bakers could understand,” Forkish said. “I think that’s what resonated [with readers]—the methods, techniques and knowledge that a professional, high-quality baker has, and how you can apply that to home baking without overcomplicating it or making it intimidating.”
Here’s a Q&A with Forkish, lightly edited for clarity, touching on Forkish’s past and present:
PMQ: You started in the tech industry out in Silicon Valley. How did you make the jump from that world into baking?
Ken Forkish: Yeah, so I started with a liberal arts degree. I went to Saint Mary’s College in Maryland, graduated in ’79, and after a year of selling home improvement products, I moved to Santa Clara and got an admin job in a tech company. It was a pretty quick path for a lot of people with English degrees, or, in my case, I studied philosophy and psychology. There weren’t degrees in things like data communications back then. So, I ended up in positions where I could figure out how stuff worked. I learned the technology on the job, but eventually, I just didn’t like corporate life. The culture was off-putting to me. I wanted to use my hands to make a living, and I got really inspired by bakeries in Europe, especially in France, so that’s how I got into baking.
PMQ: What drew you specifically to French bakeries and bread?
Forkish: I spent a lot of time in Europe in the ’90s. I had a girlfriend in France, and I would visit her in Paris, and every time, I had a list of bakeries I wanted to visit. I just got this bug. I felt like I could learn to be a craft baker. I was really inspired by Lionel Poilâne, who had this classic old-school bakery in Paris, and Philippe Gosselin at Poilâne Bakery in the 7th arrondissement. The bread they made just struck a chord with me. I thought if I could just learn to make great bread like that, I’d be onto something. So, I quit tech, trained for a couple of years, visited bakeries, and practiced at home before opening my bakery. It was a steep learning curve, but I was all in.
PMQ: Let’s talk about your shift to pizza. What was your relationship with pizza before you started serving it at Ken’s Artisan?
Forkish: Well, yeah, keep in mind the era. The first time we made pizza was at Ken’s Artisan Bakery in 2005. I needed to expand revenue, and I’d always had an interest in pizza. A few guys on my team had some kitchen experience, so we made a team to try pizza in the bread oven. It was pretty good, and I opened up a Monday night pizza pop-up at the bakery. We served beer, wine, salad—really simple stuff—but people loved it. There were lines out the door. It was popular enough that I thought, let’s do a wood-fired pizza restaurant, so I opened Ken’s Artisan Pizza in 2006. It was a big hit right from the start.
PMQ: And how has the pizza changed from what it was in the early days?
Forkish: We did a same-day dough for too many years—about 10 years. There was a transition in the staff, and I took over as chef in 2017. When I wrote The Elements of Pizza, [published in 2016] I knew we could make a better pizza than we were making. The pizzeria was always really successful, but I always knew it could be better.
PMQ: Was it difficult to implement those changes?
Forkish: Yeah, there was a lot of institutional resistance. And that’s not to diss the staff I had, but it’s not uncommon. If you’ve had a long-term kitchen staff and you want to introduce an entirely different way of making the pizza, there’s going to be some resistance. I went through three chefs in a short period of time because it was hard to make that change.
PMQ: How did you ultimately deal with that?
Forkish: It was like being the GM of a football team—you know what it takes, but you need the right head coach and the right players. Finally, I took over as chef [in 2017], and we switched to a two- or three-day dough with sourdough in it. It made a huge difference. The pizza [Ken’s is] making today has this beautiful leoparding on the crust, and it’s so different from what we were making even in 2016.
PMQ: You’ve written a couple of hugely popular books. I’m going to get the order of these ingredients wrong…but what made you decide to write Flour Water Salt Yeast?
Forkish: At that point, I’d been baking for 10 years, and I felt like I had a strong understanding of how bread works. I wanted to write a book that explained things that I didn’t see in other bread books. There was a lot of “woo-woo” stuff in baking, and I wanted to get behind that and explain how it actually works. I wrote about my transition from tech to baking in the first chapter because that story resonated with a lot of people. But mostly I wanted to show home bakers that they could apply the techniques of professional bakers in a way that’s understandable and not intimidating.
PMQ: I can’t help but notice you opened the pizzeria five years after you opened the bakery. And then your pizza book, The Elements of Pizza, came out about five years after your baking book. Why did those events follow a similar cadence?
Forkish: It was a natural progression. After opening the pizzeria, I knew I still had a lot to learn about pizza. So, when I decided to write the pizza book, the first thing I did was book a trip to New York and then Naples and Rome to learn from the best pizza makers. I tried to take everything I learned and make it accessible for home cooks. The difference now is that back then, there wasn’t the big market for high-temp home pizza ovens like there is today. So, when I wrote The Elements of Pizza, it was mostly geared toward regular home ovens, but the dough recipes and the fundamentals still work great.
PMQ: You’ve received some amazing recognition for Ken’s Artisan Pizza, including being ranked in the top 50 pizzerias in the world. How does that feel?
Forkish: It feels amazing. I couldn’t have done it without my team. Vince Krone, the chef I hired and trained, is still there running the kitchen. He’s brilliant. And the new owner, Peter Kost, is an incredible operator. They deserve a ton of credit. When I sold the pizzeria, I felt like I’d accomplished what I set out to do, and the food was as good as it’s ever been.
PMQ: Are you still doing pop-ups? I read a couple of years ago that you were doing some.
Ken Forkish: Yeah, I guess you could call it a pop-up. I’ve got a very occasional gig at the Four Seasons Resort Hualālai on the Big Island. I probably do it seven or eight times a year, during the busiest tourist season. It’s out on the golf course; they set up a wood-fired oven for me, and I make pizza for people while they play a little par-3 course. Usually, there are 20, 30, or 40 people out there, and it’s a lot of fun. I really enjoy doing it.
PMQ: That sounds amazing. Do people know it’s you making the pizza?
Forkish: It’s a mix. Some people know who I am, and some don’t. I always put a copy of my book out there, and I’ll say, “Hey, I wrote that book!” (laughs). There are definitely some people who recognize me, and that’s gratifying. I’ve got this chef’s jacket from 50 Top Pizza that says “World’s Best Pizza” with my name on it, so I’ll start wearing that, too.
PMQ: What’s your favorite kind of pizza to eat?
Forkish: Cheese pizza. Just give me a straight-up cheese pizza or a Margherita. When I was in Naples, I was ordering the classic pizzas—Margherita, Marinara, and Cosacca, which is a marinara with grated cheese on top after it comes out of the oven. Those are my favorites.
PMQ: Do you still pay attention to trends in the pizza industry?
Forkish: It’s both yes and no. When I’m home, I’m in my own world—reading, gardening, playing golf, and cooking. But when I travel, I pay attention. I just visited Wiley Dufresne’s Stretch Pizza in New York, and it was incredible. There’s this trend now of high-end chefs getting into pizza, and it’s fascinating. Guys like Josh Skenes and even René Redzepi are working on pizza now. It’s a trend that I don’t see stopping, and it’s exciting to see chefs with so much skill and knowledge getting into pizza.
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PMQ: What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into the pizza business?
Forkish: You have to muster as much patience as you can. Have a vision and stick to it. And, remember, you’re only as good as your staff. Building and maintaining a great team is hard, and you’ll always have turnover. But if you stay committed and never stop trying to make it better, it can be incredibly rewarding.
