I am not one to turn down a slice of pizza (just ask my waistline), especially when that pizza is made by a robot, and even more especially when said robot is the Piestro, which I have been writing about for years — but until now was never able to see in person.
So when Wavemaker Labs invited me to their Los Angeles headquarters to see a Piestro for myself and taste the pizza it made — I hopped on a flight down.
In the video above you can see the 800° Go version of the Piestro, which is currently engineered to make pizzas to 800°’s specifications (dough, toppings, etc.). And, perhaps more pertinent, the version of the robot in the video is also being retired. The next Piestro will be narrower and the cubbies will move to the side instead of the front (so people waiting for their pizzas don’t block the window where passers-by can see the robot in action). The next iteration of Piestro will also be faster. Piestro CEO Massimo Noja De Marco said this version is slower because everything is being recorded to help make improvements to the final robot.
Piestro has got a busy year ahead of itself. In addition to launching pizza robots with 800° and for Carbone Restaurant Group, Piestro is running two crowdfunding campaigns, one as a joint venture with 800° to raise $10 million and another one to raise $20 million just for itself. De Marco told me that their current timeline calls for five Piestro machines to reach their partners by September of this year (it was supposed to be May, but global supply problems caused a delay). Those five machines will go through some testing and refinement for a couple of months. De Marco said that by January of 2023 Piestro should be firing up production and moving towards scale.
But all the scale in the world doesn’t matter if the pizza is no good. Thankfully, I can report that to my tastebuds, the 800° Piestro pizza is delicious. I tried the margharita pizza and it was excellent. The dough is springy, the sauce was excellent and the crust had a nice char without tasting burnt.
In the video above, De Marco demoed the Piestro, so you can see its literal machinations. From saucing to topping to slicing to boxing, the Piestro does it all in a compact footprint.
I’m just sorry that after enjoying this video, you don’t get to enjoy the pizza.
If you want to understand all the key players in pizza automation, you should check out the OttOmate Market Guide to Pizza Robots! And video from our Pizza Automation Summit last year.
Video: I Tried a Slice of Piestro's Robot-Made 800° Go Pizza