The kind of pies we hope to see at The Forge. [Photograph: The Pizza Hacker]
Newly re-developed Jack London Square will be home to a wood-fired pizzeria come 2013. The Forge will occupy a 4,736 square foot space that according to Eater will be a:
masculine-seeming, wood-centric dining room with an 800-degreeItalian Valoriani oven "reminiscent of a large blacksmith's forge" as the focal point. Mosaic tiles, railroad tiles and reclaimed wood are the other materials mentioned.
And the director of pizza R&D will be (as if you didn't know from the title) —The PizzaHacker!, aka Jeff Krupman.
PizzaHacker first came on the San Francisco scene with his amazing Franken-Weber, a hacked Weber grill modification of his own engineering (read more on that here and here), not so different from the now commercially available Weber KettlePizza Insert. His modified grill is officially known as the PizzaForge—there's some pizza serendipity for you. His pies start from a naturally-leavened dough and have a nice chew and rise, which you can read all about here. Good move by The Forge to get this pizza-specific consultant.
The Forge is slated to open at 66 Franklin Street in Oakland sometime in the upcoming winter months. We'll keep you posted!
About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.