Spokane chef wins national pizza competition, $25K

An award-winning chef and former Spokane bakery owner took home a $25,000 grand prize after beating out three chefs from across the country in a pizza-baking competition last weekend in California.

Ricky Webster, who owned Rind and Wheat bakery on the edge of Browne’s Addition, impressed the four judges with his Sicilian-style, skillet-baked caponata pizza Saturday at the Francis Ford Coppola’s third annual “Perfect Your Pizza” competition near Geyserville, California.

Webster is experienced in the world of baking challenges, having appeared on shows for Food Network and Peacock. He said his goal was to have fun, learn something new and push himself.

“If you win, it’s the icing on the cake, and this time I got to bring it home,” Webster said. “It’s a wonderful feeling.”

Webster doesn’t make pizzas professionally, but he said he still loves making them. In fact, he’s been trying to perfect his Sicilian-style pizza for the last year and a half and figured this competition would be a great opportunity.

He said his pizza, which he dubbed “Picture it, Sicily” as a nod to the Golden Girls’ Sophia Petrillo when she would start her rants about Italy, is a traditional pan pizza in which the crust has to be “the star of the show.” He said he wanted to keep the pizza true to Sicilian ingredients and he has been a long-time lover of the classic Sicilian dish, eggplant caponata.

He said the caponata, which includes eggplants, onions, olives, celery, pine nuts, golden raisins, chili flakes, red wine vinegar and tomatoes, is spicy, salty, sweet and savory.

“It kind of hits all those notes,” Webster said.

Webster, who was representing the West Coast in the competition, and his fellow contestants had to pair their pizzas with a wine from the Francis Coppola Diamond Collection.

They competed in an outdoor stage area of the Coppola vineyard where rain began to fall. Baking outside in front of an audience with supplies and ingredients that aren’t his, he said, is always a bit out of his comfort zone.

“You just do what you can in the time allotted and hope that it turns out the best that it possibly can, so that you’re represented as well as you possibly can be,” Webster said. “And for this one, the stars aligned and it turned out.”

Webster said he is a huge fan of Dan Richer, one of the four judges and a nationally acclaimed pizza expert who authored, “The Joy of Pizza.”

“He said it’s one of the best pizzas he’s ever tasted, and that’s insane to me,” Webster said of Richer.

Webster moved to Spokane in 2017 with his partner. He started Rind and Wheat bakery in 2020 and sold it last year. The new owners closed the business one and a half months ago.

A second location for Webster’s Rind and Wheat, called Morsel by Rind and Wheat, on the Lower South Hill also closed last year after less than a year of operation.

Webster said he recently accepted the director of innovation position at BakeMark, a bakery manufacturer and distributor, and will move to Southern California in the coming months. Webster was born and raised in Northern California and lived in the southern part of the state for about nine years before coming to Spokane.

Webster said he will use his competition prize money on a trip to Italy and the rest could go to relocating.

“(Spokane’s) been very, very kind to us, but we’re headed back to Southern California and be closer to family,” he said.