The Nice Guy, an upscale Italian restaurant in Los Angeles, transformed its pizza menu for one night only on Sunday, March 16, with the help of a special guest who came all the way from Tokyo.

CNN once hailed Susumu Kakinuma as Japan’s “prime minister of pizza,” and the chef is credited with introducing his country to Neapolitan pizza. Now Kakinuma, the founder of Seirinkan in Tokyo, will introduce Los Angeles to, well, Kakinuma-style pizza.

On the menu were Kakinuma’s Margherita, Bianca and Marinara pizzas. Reservations were required, and, judging by The Nice Guy’s exclusive, Hollywood-friendly nature, it’s safe to say being a nice guy wasn’t enough to get you into the event.

How exclusive is The Nice Guy? Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber reportedly got into a bit of a kerfuffle at a private party hosted by the Mafia-themed restaurant in 2015. Quentin Tarantino partied there with the cast of his film, The Hateful Eight, that same year.

As PMQ reported in 2018, Kakinuma ushered in “the new wave of Japanese pizza” when he opened the AVPN-certified Seirinkan around 30 years ago. He fires his Tokyo Neapolitan-style pies using locally sourced wood and punches up the flavor with extra salt, all with “a delicateness of dough that extends to the top of the fire-seared crust,” Eater.com has explained.

Kakinuma is also a drummer and brings a certain sensibility to pizza-making. “For me, pizza is music,” he told Eater at that time. “In both pizza and music, rhythm is most crucial. You can’t make good pizza or play good music without the correct rhythm. So, for me, pizza and music are one and the same.”

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