After a three-year absence from the annual International Pizza Expo, local chef Michael Baldwin returned to compete with a pizza he hadn’t practiced making in a while.
His entry for the event, held in late March in Las Vegas, was a nontraditional pizza he created last summer for his dad, Jeff Baldwin, also a chef and founder of Macomb County’s family-run Baldwin Restaurant Group. The father-son effort turned out to be a winner. Baldwin’s pizza won the No. 1 spot in the nontraditional pizza competition for the Mid-America region and brought him a $500 prize.
Michael Baldwin built his competition pizza by starting with a herb compound butter base spread on a sourdough-style base. Next came an array of cheese blends, including Asiago and an aged cheddar, plus pickled peaches paired with seared guanciale (pork jowl). The creation was topped with peppery arugula tossed with olive oil, small dollops of pistachio-pine nut pesto and a drizzle of hot honey and sea salt
The pizza also qualified for a spot in the international non-traditional pizza competition. In that competition, Baldwin’s pizza placed second — and it was really close. The winner, according to results on the expo’s website, finished with a score of 52.70, barely edging out Baldwin’s 52.68 score.
“It was a beautiful pizza. I felt so great about it,” Baldwin said. “The pressure was high, and I was shaken. I made a great pizza, and I was 95% sure that I made the same one that got me there.”
Baldwin earned $2,000 for the second-place finish. Overall, hundreds of pizzas compete across different divisions at the annual expo.
For Baldwin, having his dad helping him was a full-circle moment.
“I’ve been his sous chef through my whole life, and he came on the trip and said, ‘Whatever you need, Mike, you know I’ll help you out,’” Baldwin said. “He’d run and get me equipment or give me water, whatever I needed, and he was always there.”
Baldwin said he and his father said a prayer over the pizza. “It was just a beautiful moment with my father,” he recalled.
Baldwin is the pizza and pasta maestro of the restaurant group’s J. Baldwin’s Restaurant and Testa Barra Kitchen & Cocktails.
Like his father, Baldwin attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. The prestigious culinary school is where Baldwin met his wife, Gabriella, executive chef and branding ambassador at Testa Barra Kitchen & Cocktails. They have two children.
Baldwin said a third Baldwin restaurant is expected to open later this year at a site at 25 Mile Road and Van Dyke.
Called The Baldwin, the Shelby Township restaurant will be a collection of “what the family has done with Italian and worldly flavors,” he said.
Contact Detroit Free Press food and restaurant writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news and tips to: sselasky@freepress.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @SusanMariecooks. Subscribe to the Eat Drink Freep newsletter for insider scoops on food and dining in metro Detroit.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Macomb County chef’s pizza scores big at expo – with pickled peaches
Reporting by Susan Selasky, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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