Chef Leo Spizzirri's Austin debut could hardly have gone any better. The maestro pizzaiolo from Chicago opened Moderna Bar & Pizzeria in December of 2025; in April of 2026, readers voted it Best New Restaurant at the CultureMap Austin Tastemaker Awards. Now he's sharing his specialized pizza knowledge with folks everywhere in Pizza Love, his debut cookbook out June 23.

To celebrate the book release, Spizzirri will be at Moderna for a ticketed event on Thursday, June 18, from 5-9 pm. The $75 ticket includes a signed copy of the book, a "meet and mingle" with the chef, a photo opportunity an artisan pizza and charcuterie buffet, and two glasses of wine or prosecco. Tickets are on sale at ModernaPizzeria.com.

Spizzirri has some serious pizza credentials. He studied at the Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli, and learned under its headmaster, Graziano Bertuzzo, for nearly 15 years, a press release recounts. Now he's an accomplished teacher and was even named Ambassador to the United States of America by the Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani (Association of Neapolitan Pizza Makers) in 2018. Feedback from students helped shape the book, so it should be mostly question-proof.

Accordingly, Pizza Love is packed with information about pizza. It contains more than 100 recipes, but these are more than different topping ideas. Spizzirri teaches eight styles of pizza — including the classic Neapolitan, Roman, New York, and Chicago Tavern styles — and then presents widely recognized recipes within each realm, with a few personal twists thrown in. The book also contains a handful recipes for non-pizza items like stromboli, calzone, focaccia, chicken cutlets, and meatballs.

With 51 introductory pages that lay out interesting pizza history, science, tools, and techniques, Pizza Love starts veering into textbook territory — this is a cookbook that you really have to read. Yes, home cooks can flip straight to a recipe and get to work, presumably without disastrous results. But they can also achieve perfection by studying the sections on temperature, flour type, and the pros and cons of different mixing techniques.

Most Austinites can't have what Spizzirri has at Moderna: a custom pizza oven from Naples and a temperature- and humidity-controlled "dough lab" for meticulous results. But they can take notes, which he strongly encourages, and use his many pages of intensive guidance to find out exactly how to tweak recipes for their home use. And they do have a major advantage living near Dripping Springs, where Barton Springs mill makes the Rouge de Bordeaux flour Spizzirri uses at the restaurant.

Peter Reinhart, the chef on assignment at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, North Carolina, who wrote the introduction to Pizza Love, sweetly describes Spizzirri's teaching style as the "rabbinical method of teaching," including stories and answering questions with more questions. It's what elevates the book from a collection of recipes to a master class.

Pizza Love is available for pre-order in hardcover ($35) and ebook ($15.99) formats now online.