In a world of sugo snobs and 00 flour aficionados, it’s refreshing to find a chef who’s not afraid to scatter chunks of sickly sweet pineapple onto his pizzas.
Ditching the tired Hawaiian, Peter Hibbert instead pickles the forbidden fruit and pairs it with wild garlic and basil oil for the ‘Heathen’, which appears from time to time on the rotational menu at Glasgow based-Caesar’s Pizza.
“My mother is Danish, and my father is Irish, so I’ve got no Italian blood,” he explained while preparing to get started on a fresh batch of dough, “I think because of that I don’t feel restricted to keeping things traditional or overly simple.
“I’m more influenced by America or Scandinavian countries where they dabble with different toppings, like the evil pineapple.
“We used to do a Neapolitan style with a woodfired oven, but I’ve always preferred a pizza that’s cooked for a little bit longer at a lower temperature.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years and learned the hard way, but now I just focus on creating the kind of pizza I want to eat myself."
Originally from Ayrshire, Peter’s journey with Caesar’s began when he moved back to Scotland from London eight years ago, hoping to bring a taste of emerging culinary trends with him.
He said: “I had been a photographer and a stay-at-home dad while we were in London and had watched the world of street food start to kick off.
“I really wanted to try and bring that sort of mobile set up with us to Angus, so we bought a two-ton trailer with a massive oven on the back.
“We went on to do events and weddings there as the Muckle Backit Oven for about six years before moving to Glasgow to be closer to family.
“I have some horror stories of cooking pizza outdoors across the Northeast coast and had been dying to open a new place that was indoors with an ambient temperature.”
Having settled in Glasgow, Peter soon sold this trusty trailer in favour of two small gas ovens which could easily be transported to outdoor markets across the city.
Keeping busy between events, he began working with a focaccia shop which operated a pop-up kitchen upstairs at McNeill’s Bar on Torrisdale Street, overlooking the trains that rattled through Queen’s Park Station.
Later, when the opportunity arose for him to take over the space himself, he was more than ready to bring his operation indoors.
He said: “I bought a really basic electric oven for the tiny kitchen they have at McNeill’s and that’s how Caesar’s started.
“It’s been just over a year since then and I’m still kind of shocked at how well it’s going.
“I always thought that I would end up doing something creative like photography or film, but it never quite worked out and it seemed like an easy step to follow the passion I had for food.
“From the very beginning, I’ve been interested in sourcing Scottish ingredients, a lot of which had made its way down to London when I was still living there.
“There weren’t many other food businesses in Angus, but the surrounding areas were full of great producers like Great Glen Charcuterie.
“Caesar’s has also allowed me to build a great collection of people to work with.”
These new friends and suppliers including East Coast Cured, Connage Cheese and Locavore will no doubt prove valuable as Peter prepares to open his first brick-and-mortar restaurant on Clarkston Road in early August.
Dubbed Caeser’s Social, the new space will allow the photographer-turned-chef to firmly lay his roots in the Southside after years of hard graft in street food-style kitchens.
He said: “Pizza is wonderful, but the great thing about the new place is that we’re going to be able to do so much more than that.
“We’ll start off with what we know, but I can’t wait to finally have a space that I can call my own and start playing around with different ideas.
“I have this big green egg BBQ that I used to have at weddings which we’ll be using for Sunday lunches.
“It feels good to be opening just down the road with a collection of great producers that we’ve been working with so far.
“You’re going to see some nice stuff coming out of that kitchen.”
Caesar’s Social is set to open at 2 Clarkston Road this summer. For updates follow find them on social media here.
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