To create the perfect slice of pizza, every pie starts with the same ingredients: flour, yeast, olive oil, salt, and, maybe, some sugar or honey to feed the yeast. But within those base ingredients are infinite combinations of proportions, slight ingredient variations, and idiosyncratic methods. Since New York City’s first pizza parlor opened in 1905, pizzaioli have continually tested new tricks and techniques to improve their dough. In the 1920s, flour containing potassium bromate emerged as the key to a fluffier rise and more consistent results, cutting the more traditional 24- to 72-hour dough fermentation time to just five or six hours.
“Using bromated flour was absolutely guaranteed when you opened a slice shop in New York City up to five years ago,” says Scott Weiner of Scott’s Pizza Tours. “It’s almost like the stores bought a bag of General Mills All Trump flour on day one. That’s what everybody used.” But a new law seeks to ban the additive, which for years, has been an essential part of the recipe for New York pizza.
While it’s been a boon for pizzeries (not to mention bagel shops), decades ago researchers identified a link between bromate use in baking and cancer in lab animals. The Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure Act, currently awaiting Governor Hochul’s signature, is set to ban potassium bromate alongside the preservative propylparaben and Red Dye 3 from all food manufactured, distributed, or sold in New York State.
“It’s banned in California,” says Senator Brian Kavanagh (D), who proposed the bill and represents New York City’s 27th district. “It’s banned throughout Europe and a dozen other countries. So, we think it is an appropriate step to take. There are plenty of alternatives, and there are already many bagel and pizza shops that don’t use bromated flour.” Potassium bromate hasn’t been meaningfully reviewed by the FDA since 1973 and is banned throughout much of the world, including in Italy, the birthplace of pizza.
What is potassium bromate in flour? What does bromated flour do?
Called a “flour improver,” potassium bromate (KBrO3) is added to flour specifically intended for baking. The legendary brand, and favorite among New York pizza makers, is General Mills’ All Trumps flour, which has exceptionally high gluten and protein content. The additive strengthens the gluten network, making dough stronger and allowing it to tolerate longer mixing, hold more gas, rise higher, and produce a lighter, springier crust, loaf, or bagel, as the case may be.
The End Of New York Pizza As We Know It? Not So Fast.
When the proposed ban on bromated flour was publicized, it prompted an outcry in the food and restaurant industry, says Kavanagh, including complaints that the alternative, longer fermentation times would hamper small businesses and probably raise prices. This past spring, big outlets like New York Times and CBS postulated the end of New York pizza and bagels as we know them, with many shop owners eager to voice a complaint.
According to Weiner, bromated flour has served as a real cheat code. “It’s like a no-brainer. It works incredibly well for what it’s supposed to do,” he says. “But you don’t need it to make great pizza. The vast majority of great pizza that people are talking about right now is coming from newer places that have a deeper understanding of fermentation and have never had to rely on potassium bromate.”
After the ban becomes law (likely in fall 2026), pizza makers will have a year in which they can still buy bromated flour and then another year to use it before it expires. Many are switching now because they know change is inevitable and customers are concerned. “There are definitely places that use it and are not yet making a switch but say they are,” says Weiner. “People are scared, but they understand that you’re not going to fall over and die as soon as you eat it.”
Not Every Pizza Maker Is Daunted
When Paul Diagostino bought the House of Pizza and Calzones 23 years ago, he didn’t change the shop’s famous recipe. When news of the bromate flour ban came out, he didn’t think it would take more than switching to a non-bromated flour, but some experimentation was called for.
“The first feedback I got was, ‘ah, it’s no problem, just a couple of tweaks here and there,’” says Diagostino, “which we tried and didn’t work for. I was getting bad feedback from colleagues of mine, family in the restaurant business. They were getting some bad results. But when I looked into it, there were different routes you could take as far as making the changes.”
He realized that the new fermentation method was “basically a poolish” (a liquid pre-fermentation step), similar to the preparation the staff already did for Zeppolis. “When I had to describe to my staff how we were going to do it, their immediate reaction was, ‘Oh, it’s like Zeppolis,’” he says, “I said, ‘exactly.’”
From there, it was an easy transition, though they’re still tweaking here and there. “We’re trying different things, because we do have time on our side right now,” Diagostino says. “But we’ve gotten positive results.”
Adapting has not proven difficult for Benny Cerva of Nino’s Pizza in Brooklyn, which has specialized in thin-crust grandma pizzas since 1970. He stopped using bromated flour at his Bay Ridge restaurant when he heard about the ban. “I thought, ‘eventually this is going to happen so I might as well get rid of it now,’” he says. “I’m actually happier with the results.”
While the pizza he made with bromated flour was fluffier, switching to more traditional fermentation methods to make his dough resulted in a crispier pizza, which he likes better. “We used that flour because it was just what everybody did,” says Cerva. “That’s the standard. So, we went with it for 40 to 50 years, but then all the news came out and we thought, ‘let’s change.’ and I’m happy with it.”
Diagostino is similarly positive about the results post-transition. “Change at first freaks people out,” he says, “but in the end, I think this is better for everybody—from operators all the way to the consumer.”
A Shifting Landscape
Weiner notes that the industry was already shifting toward more traditional, artisanal methods of pizza making. Paulie Gee, of Paulie Gee’s Slice Shop on Franklin Street in Brooklyn, is of that new generation. He serves up traditional Neapolitan-style pizza, “but with some very untraditional Neapolitan toppings”—like dried bing cherries and orange blossom honey. Or the Monte Cristo pizza with Gouda, Canadian bacon, and maple syrup.
As far as his pizza dough, though, Gee does prefer classic, artisanal methods. Since opening his slice shop in 2018, he has never considered using flour with bromate, opting for pricier flour and fermentation time of at least 24 hours. As a result his pizza is famous for its high-quality dough (and creative toppings). Yes, some pizzerias will have to adapt, he says, but the industry was changing long before the ban was even discussed.
“In the past 20 years, there’s been more of a focus on making really high quality, highly regarded artisanal pizza,” Gee says. “There’s a number of shops out there that make what looks like New York-style pizza, but it’s more artisanal. People look to use the best ingredients and they steer away from that flour. I can say that I made a wise decision right from the get-go.”
Charlie Webb, of Poughkeepsie’s Hudson and Packard, is in a similar boat. He worked with bromated flour as an intern, early in his pizza career. But by the time he opened his own shop in 2020, he knew he wanted to do things differently. A Michigan native, Webb Detroit-style pizza, a rectangular, deep-dish pizza known for its focaccia-like crust and crispy, caramelized cheese edge.
A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, Webb was always committed to using the highest quality ingredients in his pizzas.“The process of bleaching and bromating flour doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” says Webb. “Everything healthy about the flour has been taken away, so they have to enrich it. People don’t know how to work with dough so they choose bromate to speed up a process that can be mastered with time and temperature.”
Like Weiner and Gee, Webb has noticed a trend in the last 10 years of pizza making, where more people are leaning towards that slow process, wanting to make a better product, putting more time and effort into the dough. “You could put the best toppings on pizza, the highest quality ingredients,” he says, “but if your dough isn’t any good, someone’s going to eat that and think like, ‘hey, yeah, the pepperoni was good, but that crust.’”
Innis Lawrence, co- owner of Ollie’s, a popular wood-fired pizza destination in High Falls, has always avoided bromated flour. He uses mostly domestic flours, from New York when possible, and relies on the poolish method. “We ferment our dough for three days minimum,” says Lawrence. The dough is fermented, boiled, fermented again—it’s a long process but as natural as they come—just salt, yeast, water, and flour. Lawrence adds some agave to feed the yeast, but that’s it.
“That’s how they’ve done it in Europe for a very, very, very long time. They saw it coming with these bromate additives 30 years ago and said, ‘You can’t put this in our bread.’ I mean, countries that live and die by their bread would never let that be normal.”
Adapting Should Be Seen As A Learning Curve: Not A Handicap
Craig Capano, the chef at Kingston’s neighborhood bar and pizzeria Sorry Charlie (which is co-owned by Webb), figures there are many institutions in the pizza world that use bleached/bromated flours because it’s all they know. But he doesn’t see adapting as a barrier—just a learning curve with a lot of potential. “It is 100% feasible,” says Capano. “Anyone working in the pizza industry can attest that no two days are alike when working with dough. By nature we are forced to adapt almost daily depending on many variables—time, temperature, humidity. Now that awareness around food and ingredients is at an all time high, most consumers would prefer restaurants using higher quality ingredients at an affordable price point.”
When Cerva posted on Nino’s social media that he was going to stop using bromated flour, his customers wondered why. His pizza was so good. But healthier is better, and he’s happy with the results.
“It’s just that we didn’t know before, and now we know better,” says Cerva. “Before we didn’t drive around without seatbelts on, and now we do. You used to smoke in the room with kids and now you know better. You try to do better.”
Scott’s Weiner’s New York Pizza Recommendations
Weiner, for his part, is convinced the ban is a good thing. “Whenever somebody tells me, ‘oh, this is going to ruin everything and this great history that’s built up,’ all I have to do is remind them that most of the best pizza that’s happening right now in the world is made with flour that is not bromated.”
The New York pizza expert alternates between dozens of pizza parlors in each borough, and he describes them all as his favorites, apt for someone who has dedicated their career to tours of the city’s prize food. Far from a complete list (you’ll have to take a tour!), here are just some of Weiner’s favorite New York pizza spots by borough:
- Arturo’s and Williamsburg Pizza – Manhattan
- Di Faro and the House of Pizza and Calzones – Brooklyn
- Beebee’s and John’s – Queens
- Brother’s Pizzeria and Joe and Pat’s – Staten Island
