This gig just can’t be topped.
Brooklynite Anthony Falco has the hottest job on the market — he’s an international pizza consultant who eats his way across the globe and helps others bring their cheesy dreams to life.
But the pizzaiolo says the jet-setting profession is harder than you think — any way you slice it.
“Everybody thinks I travel around and eat pizza, and honestly that’s the worst part of it at this point,” Falco told The Post over a cheese slice at Upside in Greenpoint.
“A lot of times I’m just in a kitchen and I could be anywhere in the world. I’m mixing dough and prepping vegetables and testing pizza — I could be anywhere, really.”
If it sounds like the ‘za connoisseur is complaining, he assures he would never: “The people are really what makes it a dream job.”
Falco, 45, has been working as an international pizza consultant since 2017 — after making a name for himself by transforming Roberta’s in Williamsburg into the iconic staple it is today.
Media accounts of that success led to an upstart Brazilian pizza joint, Braz Elettrica, to reach out and ask him to recreate his pie magic in South America.
The reviews of that hipster-friendly slice of New York-style pizza culture in Sao Palo led to even more attention, and more requests from other global eateries for his help in opening a pizza operation.
The connoisseur soon put his own dreams of owning a pizza joint on hold and carved a new career path.
“It just kind of happened. I wasn’t really a plan, but I started calling myself an international pizza consultant after the first check from a different county cleared,” he explained.
In the last eight years, Falco has helped dozens of pizzerias get off the ground across 22 countries and is on his way to covering ground in all seven continents: “I guess I have to figure out how to make pizza in Antarctica.”
The job goes beyond teaching other countries to make delicious flatbreads — Falco helps clients identify their brand and establish their menus, as well as design an efficient kitchen layout with custom equipment and proper ventilation.
It’s a “soup to nuts” operation, he said.
What people don’t realize is just how odd the gig can be overseas, especially when it comes to sourcing ingredients that pizza-loving Americans take for granted.
“In Taipei, where are you going to get the pepperoni? They have a ban on ground pork and ground beef from the United States — so we have to figure out how to come up with our own pepperoni. I have to teach a guy who makes Chinese sausages how to make pepperoni,” explained the Williamsburg resident.
Accommodating drastic cultural differences is a major part of the international pizza consulting world, according to Falco.
For example, Southeast Asian countries love incorporating tropical fruit into their pies, while lamb pizza is the best-selling pie in Mongolia because it is such a staple in their diet. Affordable cheese products, however, are harder to come by in the latter country, so Falco turned to import to secure the integral pizza component.
“To make it accessible sometimes is a challenge, but they love it. When I was there, a lot of Mongolian kids came after school just like any other pizzeria.”
America is not without its own eccentricities.
The US was among the only countries to sell pizza by the slice — until Falco and his team introduced it to Bangkok.
But that hasn’t stopped others from inventing bizarre ways to pick up a quick cheesy lunch on the go.
“In Naples, they have something called a ‘pizza portfolio,’ which means pizza wallet. And they’ll take a whole pizza fold it in half and then fold it again and then walk down the street and eat it like that,” the “Pizza Czar” author said.
The pizza landscape has changed dramatically over the eight years since Falco launched his consulting business.
At first, Naples-inspired wood-fired pies were all the rage, a recipe the pizzaman knew well from his own past cooking in Roberta’s.
The craze has since evolved into New York style.
“New York has in that time had a renaissance. There’s so many great pizza places that have popped up in the last eight years. The whole game has changed here,” said Falco, referring to the rise in popularity of specialty pizzas, while still maintaining the iconic thin crust structure the “World Pizza Capital” is known for.
And Falco should know. When he’s not flying across the globe to help establish his clients’ businesses, the pizza whiz is setting off on research trips.
He recently returned from an excursion to London, where he witnessed parlors merging New York style with New Haven, which is known for its charred but crispy pizzas that are more heavy on the sauce than the cheese.
That led Falco to run a four-day trip across New York, New Haven, New Jersey and Philadelphia, four states renowned for their pizza, to crack the code on what is causing their success.
“It’s methodical … When I try a pizza, what I’ll do is tear the crust and open it up and smell it and look at the bottom of the pizza — look at everything to see what people like about a place,” Falco, originally from Texas, said.
“I’m not trying to copy anyone’s pizza, but I want to take elements and then put it through my framework, which is all about fermentation, high-quality flour, high-quality ingredients. The dough is really the hard part.”
While Falco admits his diet is too pizza-centric, he has always made time to enjoy the local delicacies during his trips across the globe.
He’s tasted the best breakfast burritos Mexico has had to offer and the incredible beef noodles in Taiwan, as well as Airag, or fermented horse milk, in Mongolia.
The pizza genius is always drawn back to the Big Apple, where his mission is to help clients keep making iconic pies without breaking the bank.
“New York’s the best place in the world to live. I can do this job from anywhere in the world, but I choose to do it here and raise my kids here,” gushed Falco.
“I just love New York. I’m not a native New Yorker, but I got here as soon as I could. I love this city. I love my neighborhood. New York forever.”