Joe Carlucci is passionate about pizza. Working in the business since age 14, the Madison-area restaurateur holds two pizza-related Guinness world records. In competitions, he has multiple World Pizza Champion wins, and last month was named the Best of the Best Pizza Maker at the International Pizza Expo.

Valentina’s Pizzeria & Wine Bar, his restaurant located across Huntsville-Brownsferry Road from a cornfield, recently was ranked 31^st in the nation by the well-regarded 50 Top Pizza guide. Valentina’s also is the state’s top slice in Alabama Magazine’s 2024 Best of Bama list.

The restaurant has built a solid reputation—and a passionate fan base—with pizzas baked from dough and sauce made in-house with high-quality toppings, as well as hand-rolled meatballs, and Italian-style desserts like lemony cannoli.

An interior wall is thick with framed accolades and media write-ups about Carlucci. But the captain credits the team.

“That is the success of this place,” Carlucci says. “It’s not the success from me winning championships. Without my staff, I’m just a nobody. Every single person matters here. Without the dishwasher, you’re not eating a pizza.”

Named for Carlucci’s 11-year-old daughter, Valentina’s offers four versions of pizza made with traditional wheat-flour doughs—New York-style, Chicago-style cracker-thin tavern pie, rectangular medium-thick Detroit-style, and deep-dish rectangular Sicilian-style. The Detroit and Sicilian-style pizzas are limited to 20 pans a day.

Pies with cauliflower dough also are available. Carlucci plans to add a New Haven-style pizza in the fall.

The classic New York version is by far the most popular among Valentina’s customers, but the little-seen-locally tavern pizza is gaining converts, the owner says.

Carlucci’s devotion to quality and technique starts with the pizza’s bread base. He uses specially milled Caputo-brand flour imported from Naples, Italy, saying it is easier to digest. Using a process called preferment, the kitchen rises a portion of its dough with yeast, which acts as a starter when blended with the rest. At Valentina’s, the dough takes up to 72 hours to prepare.

The quality of ingredients shines in the final product. Carlucci sources some locally—like Elkmont’s Belle Chevre in the restaurant’s 5 Boroughs fried goat-cheese balls. He also imports from specialty purveyors, including meats like pepperoni that form cups when baked.

Much is prepared from scratch at Valentina’s. Bacon is cured in-house. Mozzarella is hand-pulled. The kitchen also makes tomato sauces, bread for bruschetta, and the restaurant’s wildly popular meatballs.

Available as an appetizer with marinara and on pizzas or calzones, the meatballs are huge orbs of ground beef, pork, and veal, skillfully blended so they turn out meaty and moist with a light texture.

When customers invariably rave about the meatballs, Carlucci says, “I always pay tribute to my grandmother. I tell them, ‘That’s grandma’s recipe. I tweaked it very, very little.’”

Valentina’s build-your-own pies offer some three dozen topping options. The menu also lists 15 types of composed pizzas, many named for Carlucci’s relatives and friends.

The Godfather, a customer favorite named for the movie, has sweet and hot Italian sausages, cup-and-char pepperoni, soppressata salami, bacon, and the house meatballs, sauce, and mozzarella. For dessert, you can take the cannoli or eat it there.

Carlucci, who grew up north of New York City, worked a variety of jobs over the years from hospital orderly to award-winning salesman. But pizza kept drawing him back.

It’s been a rocky road at times, he says. Carlucci started competing to earn money in an ultimately vain effort to keep afloat his first restaurant in Connecticut.

But that’s also when he met his mentor, Tony Gemignani, a celebrity pizzaiolo. They later helped form the World Pizza Champions team, which performs exhibitions at festivals and trade shows, spinning pizza dough like freestyle frisbee players. The international nonprofit also organizes the World Pizza Games skills showcase.

Carlucci relocated to Alabama in 2008 after being asked to consult at a Huntsville pizzeria. He built a customer base while operating a food truck for three years before opening Valentina’s in 2020. The restaurant moved to its current location late last year.

Carlucci’s awards include:

• Guinness World Record for Highest Pizza Toss (21 feet, 5 inches in 2006)
• Guinness World Record for Largest Pizza Base Spun in one minute (28.35 inches on live television in 2017)
• Eight-time World Pizza Champion
• Best Traditional Pizza in the Southeast (2021) by the International Pizza Expo and Conference (IPEC)
• Best Traditional Pizza in the World (2022) by IPEC (That pie, with red sauce, fior di latte cheese, hot Italian sausage, and peppadew peppers, is on Valentina’s menu)
• Best Non-Traditional Pizza in the World (2023) by IPEC
• Pizza Maker of the Year (2023) by IPEC (The winning pizza with a mozzarella base, hot Italian sausage, spinach, and a house blend of ricotta cheese, peppadews, and hot honey also is on the menu)
• Best of the Best Pizza Maker by IPEC (March)

Best of the Best competitors, prior winners of IPEC’s Pizza Maker of the Year, start with a “secret ingredient” basket. This year it contained pork belly, red onion, and a pineapple. Carlucci’s entry won with a red sauce base topped with seared pork, caramelized pineapple, red onion, and hand-pulled mozzarella.

In the same competition, Camryn Suggs, Valentina’s general manager, won Best Non-Traditional Pizza in the Southeast with a take on steak au poivre—mushrooms, red wine, and filet mignon, topped with micro greens, compound butter and balsamic vinegar glaze.

“She barely missed it,” Carlucci says of the category’s best-in-the-nation award, in which Suggs placed fifth. “Next year she’s going to clean house.”

Each competition win and media exposure has led to a surge in customers and the distances they travel, Carlucci says. “Pizza has this cult following. We’ve had people drive from Nashville, Knoxville, Atlanta just because they heard it was the best.”

Valentina’s inclusion on the Top 50 Pizza list in June, for which restaurants are evaluated incognito, was a pleasant surprise.

“You don’t know when they’re coming,” Carlucci says. “You don’t even know if you’ve been nominated, and you have to be nominated for the list to even be on their radar.”

Despite the publicity and plaudits, Carlucci has no plan now to open multiple locations of Valentina’s.

“Bigger is not always better,” the pizza man says. “I would rather have one that just rocks the South, as opposed to having two or three and diminish my daughter’s legacy. Because she’s going to take it over one day.”

 

Valentina’s Pizzeria and Wine Bar is located at 25783 Huntsville-Brownsferry Road. 

Open Tuesday-Thursday, 4 p.m.-8 p.m.; Friday 4p.m.-9 p.m.; and Saturday noon-9 p.m.