Before Sebastian Besiso opened Apizzeria 888 in Elkins Park last fall, he treated the tiny shop like a “pizza lab.” His research and experimentation has produced one of the best pies in the Philly area.
Getting your hands on a pie from Apizzeria 888 by Sebastian isn’t as simple as placing an order online, or picking up the phone and hearing a voice on the other end say ‘Pickup or delivery?’
There is no online ordering. Owner Sebastian Besiso tried it when he opened last fall and shut it down after 48 hours when he couldn’t stagger the pickup times through the platform, and dozens of customers descended on his tiny Elkins Park pizzeria simultaneously, waiting outside in the cold expecting their pies.
When you call the shop’s phone number, you get a voicemail greeting with instructions on how to reserve a pie—though that’s no guarantee you’ll get one. Apizzeria 888 is a one-man operation that is currently open around “12 to 15 hours a week, give or take,” Besiso told me, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. And as a solo pizzaiolo with an exacting attention to detail, he said he’s only making about 15 pies a night right now, having learned the hard way that cranking out 40-50 pies a night on his own was way too many.
It even takes a bit of digging to find the shop’s limited menu. (“That’s one of life’s mysteries,” Besiso acknowledged, with a knowing laugh.) Since the website is essentially inactive, you’ve got to track it down through the shop’s Google listing.
But trust me on this: the effort required to land one of the practically credit card-thin and crispy Roman-style pies Besiso serves up from his Old York Road storefront just outside of Philadelphia is well worth it.
I’ve tried Besiso’s Pizza Alla Romana (a blend of mozzarella and Romano cheeses with dabs of a sweet tomato-basil sauce, topped with sharp shredded parm on a breakaway crunchy crust) and Pizza Honey Roni (all of the above along with beef pepperoni, hot honey, and ricotta). Both were stellar, with flavor and snap in each bite. His thin and crispy crust is so light, you have to double-check to make sure there’s a pie inside when he hands you the box.
The relatively minor barriers one has to navigate to land one of Besiso’s pizzas aren’t in place to build mystique or social media buzz (to wit: the shop’s Instagram account features just four Canva-y graphics—the most recent one was posted in November). It’s just part of his deliberate approach.
“I’d rather serve fewer people at a higher level than everyone at an average one,” Besiso said. “I’m not building a volume business. I’m building something personal, something recognizable, something that can’t be copied. I want every order to feel like it matters.
“Social media is huge (for pizza). You’ll see this guy doing that and that guy doing this, but if you try to imitate and chase people, you just end up getting lost. Minimalism goes a long way. Simplicity is so powerful. It’s always better than trying to over-deliver and making too much noise.”
A tale of two backgrounds
Pizza is very much a part of Besiso’s background.
Growing up in Northeast Philly, Besiso was exposed to what he calls “the best pizza”—the pies made at home by his mother, which she still makes to this day.
“Doesn’t matter what I do, I can’t get close to her pizza,” Besiso said.
He worked in a neighborhood pizzeria and eventually co-owned a shop in Center City with his brother.
While Besiso was gaining institutional knowledge working in the pizza business, he also began studying chemical engineering at Drexel. Eventually it became a concurrent career, and remains his day job.
Besiso attributes his pursuit of getting every element of his pizzas just right—from the dough fermentation, to the charring, to the crispiness, to the way his takeout boxes are ventilated—to his chemical engineering background.
“Because I came from engineering, I apply that discipline here,” Besiso said.
Before Apizzeria 888 opened officially, Besiso said he treated the shop like a “pizza lab,” experimenting with different styles involving various fermentation processes. He eventually settled on a six-week fermentation process (most pizzerias do 72 hours at the most), which gives his Roman-style pies texture and bubbles on the bottom, and a cracker-like snap.
“The aging and fermentation of the dough, the execution, the look of the bottom of the pizza—everything is completely different,” Besiso said. “The idea was to try the fermentation as long as possible, but to make sure the dough is not spoiled. Three years and about 3,000 pizzas into it, I was able to figure out the process.”
Besiso also leaned on his engineering acumen to figure out how to strategically poke holes in the box tops to allow his pizza to maintain its crispness and heat—a crucial detail for a takeout-only operation.
“My pizza was losing too much heat,” Besiso said. “I had to do the math to figure out exactly how many holes I needed and the distance between each hole and from the edge of the box.”
‘I’m not trying to compete with anyone’
Despite (or perhaps because of) limited availability, Besiso’s pies are gaining popularity. He said he’s met some pizza enthusiasts who have driven more than an hour to try one based solely on word of mouth.
Since Apizzeria 888 is a small takeout shop on a busy street, some of those customers who don’t want to wait until they get home to dig in have taken to popping open the box in the public parking lot behind the shop and enjoying their pizzas right on the hood of their cars.
“People are grabbing paper plates, grabbing cokes, and enjoying the pizza right there in the parking lot, having a blast.” Besiso said. “I can see it on my security cameras.”
Down the road, Besiso said that someday he’d like to open a full restaurant, where people can have “a full pizza experience with ambience.”
“Something where people can come in, sit down and have a meal, and interact with the pizza maker. Have a nice fancy pizza dinner. Something different from places you see now.
“I’m not trying to compete with anyone. I have my plan and I’m focusing on my own thing.”
