David Lee of Pizza Jawn tries to win dough on Hulu cooking show
On the show "Best in Dough," filmed in Los Angeles about a year ago, he says he went big.
There’s no end to TV cooking competitions. Now on your screen is pizzamaking from Hulu.
Best in Dough has host Wells Adams (Bachelor in Paradise) and chef/head judge Daniele Uditi (L.A.’s Pizzana) leading three competitors vying for a $10,000 prize per episode.
In an episode that begins streaming Sept. 26, David Lee of the Manayunk pizza parlor Pizza Jawn takes on Miriam Weiskind of Brooklyn’s Za Report and Jhy Coulter of Devoured in Kansas City, Mo.
» READ MORE: Craig LaBan on Pizza Jawn: "A win for the pizza public'
Pizza Jawn, Za Report, and Devoured are billed as pop-ups, which is how Lee started in 2017, baking pies outside breweries and, during the pandemic, from his home kitchen. The brick-and-mortar Pizza Jawn opened at 4330 Main St. in late 2020 to acclaim — a full year before the Best in Dough episode was filmed in L.A.
Lee said he was not fazed by the fact that he and his adversaries did not get the precise ingredients and dough time that they would get in the real world. Lee said his dough only got an 18-hour fermentation, less than half the time he usually allows.
Talk about field conditions. Lee said he made a cheesesteak pizza — but instead of his prized Cooper sharp, he had to use “just an American,” and instead of the pricey Grande blend, he was given “simple mozzarella.”
That probably wouldn’t show up on TV, though the judges — chef Millie Peartree, baker Bryan Ford, and comedian Eunji Kim — might notice when they dug in.
The show’s frenetic pace did not faze him, either. Lee is typically calm in the kitchen, anyway. “Our pizza shop is pretty chaotic,” he said. “We’re short staffed and always in the weeds.”
He said his strategy was to go “outside of the box.” Given that it’s TV, “we couldn’t be too true to the kind of stuff we do at the shop. I figured I’d maybe go a little bigger.”