Michael Ayoub

Chef and Brooklyn native Michael Ayoub was destined to bring his wood-fired pizzas to Brooklyn. Fornino, which was his mother’s maiden name meaning little oven, first opened its doors in Williamsburg in 2004 and immediately became an NYC favorite.  The brand is now synonymous with having the best Neapolitan pizza in NYC, where each pie showcases Chef’s love of the science behind pizza-making and his 45+ years of culinary experience and creativity.  Fornino now has three thriving locations, in Greenpoint, at Time Out Market in DUMBO and Brooklyn Bridge Park seasonally. He’s come a long way from his first restaurant, Skaffles, which he purchased in 1977 at 20 years old and ran until 1985. After that, he won the city bids to become the caterer for the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. And he followed that up in 1989 when he opened up an Italian restaurant called Cucina, which was the first restaurant in Brooklyn to be reviewed by the New York Times. From there he went on to delve completely into his passion project, which was and still is pizza making. When he’s not dreaming up new First Generation Naples, Second Generation Italian and Third Generation, quintessential Fornino pizzas, he takes his talents to even higher temperatures as an accomplished glass artist with some of his hand-blown lights and sculptures on display at Fornino’s flagship location in Greenpoint.