By the time he was 11 chef Renato Viola was apprenticing with a prominent Naples pizza chef. A native of Agropoli in Campania, Viola continued his studies throughout Italy and joined the award-winning Italian Pizza Acrobatics team. He landed in Miami Beach under an O-1 Visa category, reserved for those with “extraordinary artistic ability,” and opened his first location on Miami Beach, followed by other locations at Brickell, Wynwood and Naples, Florida.

Viola, who says he’s an expert on all styles of pizza, serves a thin-crust version at his restaurants. “Our dough rests for at least 96 hours,” he says. “We import a lot of product directly from Italy like our Mister O1 flour, the sauce, the Italian cold cuts and many others.” When his wife told him he needed a hobby, he decided to open a pizza school for home cooks. The entertaining, hands-on classes last about three hours and teach participants everything from making and shaping the dough to adding toppings, and soak up some of Viola’s enthusiasm: “The good thing is that I really love what I do. I am a true pizza lover.”