Rexburg pizza-maker’s savory creation earns top prize in national contest
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IDAHO FALLS – Bill Crawford’s latest pizza creation took the top prize in a national contest earlier this month, and he stopped by the EastIdahoNews.com studio to share it with us.
El Pollo Borracho (Spanish for “drunken chicken”), a pizza that combines tequila lime chicken with grilled corn over a blend of California-made, Mexican-style cheeses, made the Righteous Slice owner the grand champion of The Real California Pizza Contest. It earned him a $15,000 prize as well. The pizza is available on the Rexburg restaurant’s menu, as of Aug. 17. See what it’s like in the video above.
The annual contest draws participants from across the country. About 150 people participated this year. A news release for the event says each competitor is judged not only on the quality of their pizza, but also on their creative use of California cheese, an inspiration speech before the panel and other criteria.
Prior to winning the grand prize, Crawford tells EastIdahoNews.com a panel of judges selected four finalists in three categories — The Real Californian, Plant Forward and Cal-Mex. Crawford’s pizza won the Cal-Mex category, but “it really shocked” him when he was selected as the grand champion.
“The difference between my pizza … and the next one was only a third of a point. The next pizza-maker who came in just behind me writes a monthly article in Pizza Today magazine. I went to his place in California. It’s stunning. He’s a highly-skilled and highly-respected pizza-maker and I just didn’t think I had any chance to do as well as I did.”
The California contest is Crawford’s fourth major pizza competition this year. He previously attended events in Las Vegas and the Italian cities of Parma and Naples.
Though Crawford was thrilled to visit the birthplace of pizza, he says his participation in the tournaments got off to a rough start.
“I felt like my pizzas were some of the best I’ve ever made, but my scores didn’t reflect that. I took the lessons learned from previous events, applied them in California and squeezed out a win,” Crawford says in a news release.
Crawford says the reason his pizza won the California contest is because it “didn’t try to be everything all at once.”
“When you sample it, you’re not going to get a sample of every flavor every time you take a bite. You’ll get a bite of the tequila lime chicken. You might get a pickled red onion or a jalapeno, but it mellows out pretty quickly with the California cheese. There’s a lot going on, but it doesn’t overwhelm you,” he says.
A veteran of the Iraq War, Crawford stepped down from a career flying F-16s for the U.S. Air Force in 2017 to become a restaurateur. He was drawn to pizza specifically because he felt it provided a lot of opportunity for creativity and self-expression.
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Under the tutelage of 12-time world pizza champion Tony Gemignani at the International School of Pizza and Roberto Caporuscio, President of the Association of Neapolitan Pizza Makers, Crawford has developed his own style and perfected his own recipes. All his pizzas are cooked in a wood-fired oven at his Rexburg shop.
Aside from running the restaurant, Bill also teaches a business management course at Brigham Young University-Idaho.
Since opening, Crawford says they’ve had a lot of requests to open another location in Idaho Falls. He and his wife, Cheryl, are exploring options to make it happen.
Righteous Slice is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday with a 10 p.m. closing time Friday and Saturday.