Australian Pizzeria Makes World's Cheesiest Pizza with 154 Kinds of Cheese
There's gorgonzola, pecorino, Taleggio, aged cheddar and gouda, oh my!
The Melbourne, Australia, pizzeria 400 Gradi bills itself as the “Home of the World’s Best Pizza,” and while its pizza has been recognized with various “best pizza” awards, probably some people – just because people love to debate what constitutes great pizza – would debate that.
Here’s what is not open to debate: 400 Gradi is now home to the World’s Cheesiest Pizza. That designation has been made official by the superlative arbiters at Guinness World Records, who recognized 400 Gradi restaurateur Johnny Di Francesco for creating a pie topped with 154 different cheeses.
Yes, it seems like only yesterday (it was last year – time flies!) that we were marveling over the previous record holder, who created a pie with 111 cheeses, snatching the honor away from an Oregon pizza maker who had less than one year previously captured it with a 101-cheese pie.
And before that? Well, before that, Di Francesco himself had created a pizza topped with 99 different cheeses, so he clearly knew he was capable of great cheesiness.
Due to popular demand, the 99-cheese pizza was actually part of 400 Gadi’s regular menu, but then, Di Francesco says, he and his team decided to reclaim the record and “up the ante” by creating a 154-cheese pizza, which he admitted to Guinness was an “ambitious idea” and a “culinary challenge.”
It wasn’t just a numbers game, either.
"We also needed to be sure each individual cheese was distinct enough from the next, yet complimentary to each flavor, and could blend really well together once combined," Di Francesco told the world record company.
The final product included a gram of each cheese, among them gorgonzola, pecorino, Taleggio, aged cheddar and gouda. And then, to replicate the pizza at 400 Gradi’s various Australian locations, the pizza makers consolidated all 154 cheeses into one big block, melting and chilling them together, to allow for broader use.
Guinness reports that the ultra-cheesy pizza “sold out of venues within five days, with a total of 797 sold.”
Perhaps that too set a record?
Photo courtesy of Guinness World Records North America, Inc.
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