Popular pizza chef to open new pizzeria in Saltaire

Simon Towers, 32 who was a finalist in the PAPA U.K. Pizza Chef of the Year Awards last year is due to open his own restaurant called l Pirata Pizzata in June, after taking up pizza making as a hobby during the Covid lockdowns.

He said: "Not to sound cliche, it all started in lockdown and when I got brought a pizza oven for my 30th birthday. I was just playing around with it, and it was a bit of respite really, so I started blogging my pizza creations, and then some local indie businesses noticed it and got behind me and started supporting me.

Simon when he was made a Petra partner

"I started doing pop-up stalls selling my pizza, and then I was given a residency at Tambourine Coffee in Saltaire which went down really well and it just snowballed from there."

Simon trained as a commis chef at college in 2005, but then opened his own engineering consultancy where he has worked for the past 10 years. Now he is looking forward to stepping back from his engineering business to focus more on the food side of things.

Despite only being in the pizza industry for a year or so, he has already been selected as a Petra flour partner, which is a brand of flour that chooses partners where they can guarantee a certain level of quality. He is believed to be the first non-Italian British person to gain this status.

One of Simon's delicious looking pizzas

"The pizzas are sort of contemporary Neapolitan style, so they're thin in the middle and there's quite a large airy crust around the sides.

The restaurant will be casual dining and we're looking at getting a license so we can serve craft beers and a selection of wines and eventually cocktails but I know that's another skill set entirely," he said.

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Simon said that he is aiming to open to the public in around three or four weeks, in time for the Queen's Jubilee Weekend but will treat it as a soft launch at first - opening a few days a week and increasing it as the restaurant gains popularity.

On opening his first-ever restaurant he said: "It's exciting and terrifying at equal measures. I've got a solid clientele from the residency at tambourine which is good to know, but it does feel like a step up opening our own restaurant entirely."