I tried to make New York's best pizza at home with Lucali chef Mark Iacono

• Mark Iacono owns Lucali, a famous pizza restaurant in Brooklyn, New York.
• Mark teaches Insider's Herrine Ro how to make the best home-cooked version of his popular margherita pie.
• He shares his tips and tricks through Skype, resulting in a pizza Herrine and Mark are both pleasantly surprised with.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Herrine Ro: Today, I'm going to learn how to make the famous Lucali pizza at home with some help from the chef and owner, Mark Iacono. This should be interesting.

Mark Iacono: Yes. [things falling] Where'd you go?

Herrine: Hi, guys. I'm Herrine, and I'm a video producer at Insider. One of the perks of my job is getting to eat at a bunch of restaurants all around the world. One of the best things I've ever eaten in my life was the pizza at Lucali in Brooklyn, New York. So good. It tastes simple, but just, like, the perfect version of a pizza. The restaurant is so popular that people normally wait two or more hours just to put their names down to eat that day. [Skype ringtone]

Mark: Hi.

Herrine: Hi, how are you?

Mark: How's quarantine going? [crickets chirping]

Herrine: I'm trying to entertain myself.

Mark: Where are you?

Herrine: I'm in Massachusetts now, so I don't think you can really do delivery. I'm gonna be here for a while now, so I was hoping that you could teach me how to make the best home version of your famous pizza.

Mark: I knew there was something up. [laughing]

Herrine: I had an ulterior motive. Is it possible to get anything close to your pizza at home?

Mark: I would definitely say yes. Let's go margherita, and especially for your first one. You know, you kind of gotta, like, you know, crawl before you walk.

Herrine: I mean, OK. Based off of how you taught me at the restaurant last time, do you think I'll do OK?

Mark: I think you'll be fine. I've seen a lot of people do pizza at home, and they just overthink it, you know. I'll teach you not to do that, and I think you'll be fine. First, we're going to make the dough.

Herrine: Do you know the, like, measurements that I should be putting in?

Mark: I'm gonna have to get back to you on that one. I just do it by hand and by eye, but I'm gonna have to do it to give you the precise measurements.

Herrine: So, I got all my ingredients, and I got Mark's recipe. Everything seems pretty straightforward. The only thing is that Mark's recipe makes eight pizza doughs and calls for three and a half pounds of flour. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take Mark's measurements and divide them by four, and hopefully things will turn out OK. It's just really a leap of faith here and, like, trusting that my math and eyeballing skills will come in for the rescue. Initially, I thought this was a little too dry, but it's coming together. It's a little sticky. So, I'm just supposed to knead this for 10 minutes. I'm gonna take it out of the bowl now.

Mark: You're looking for, like, a more, almost a very soft Play-Doh.

Herrine: This feels like soft Play-Doh. I went a little rogue, because after reading the recipe you sent me, it called for three and a half pounds of flour, and this is, like, sacred to me right now. It looks like this.

Mark: It looks great. I guess I forgot to tell you to... but it's OK, it's fine.

Herrine: What did you forget to tell me?

Mark: You gotta kind of, like, knead it a little, into a ball. You want me to show you how to do it? So, you kind of want to fold it in half, right? Now turn it the other way and fold it in half again. Like that, yeah. Perfect. Now grab a little less. Grab it close to the edges and fold it under. All right? And then you want to turn it upside down. After you do that about four, five times, and just, like, with your hand, I don't know if you can see this, trying to fold and close it up on the bottom.

Herrine: So, because I eyeballed it, like, is the texture right?

Mark: Yeah, it looks like you nailed it. Now, what you want to do to prevent it from drying out is you want to baste this in oil. And then just lightly place some Saran Wrap around it, and then just, like, give it some room to expand, you know.

Herrine: You said six hours in the recipe, but, like, can I just leave this overnight?

Mark: Absolutely. I prefer a longer proof. The temperature in the refrigerator will slow down the rising process. Look, done. That's it. Done. Put it in the fridge. Why are you stressing?

Herrine: I'm not stressing. Mark: You made the dough fantastic.

Herrine: I will call you tomorrow when I'm ready to roll out the pizza and do final assembly.

Mark: OK.

Herrine: It's a new day, and let's see if they rose. I really don't think that they rose too much. I'm just gonna let them chill here while I make the sauce. How am I going to make a sauce with canned tomato sauce to taste anything like yours? So, that's the sauce that I need?

Mark: Del Monte tomato sauce, yes. You're going to need about 45 minutes, you know, cook time.

Herrine: So, I don't have Del Monte. I got Hunt's.

Mark: We're gonna bring it to a boil. We're gonna put garlic, a little bit of onion, salt, pepper, basil, oregano, and a little sugar.

Herrine: And do I dump all of that in all at once and then let it cook?

Mark: Yeah. Again, it's that easy. And then bring it to a boil. Let it cool. Bring it to a second boil, and just let it sit for, like, 15, 20 minutes.

Herrine: Is there a reason why you double boil it?

Mark: Yeah. I try not to overcook it.

Herrine: If there's one thing that I nail on this pizza, it's gonna be the sauce, because, from my memory, this tastes almost exactly like the sauce at his restaurant.

Mark: Supermarket cheese, huh. You're gonna need a low-moisture, low-fat cheese. Believe it or not, you know what works great? Polly-O. If you can, get buffalo mozzarella. I like to use the buffalo because of its moisture content, which is a little higher, and when cooking at home, you know, you want to use something, you know, you want to add moisture to the pizza. I mean, if you have access to it. If not, we'll just go with the Polly-O. Parmesan cheese.

Herrine: Mm-hmm. Fresh Parmesan cheese?

Mark: Fresh Parm. Herrine: This was what I got.

Mark: Fantastic.

Herrine: And because they didn't have buffalo mozzarella, I just got fresh mozzarella.

Mark: Perfect.

Herrine: That'll do?

Mark: That'll do.

Herrine: What do you think are, like, the biggest mistakes that people do making pizza at home?

Mark: Everything needs to be prepared.

Herrine: Am I shredding all the cheeses?

Mark: You can shred. I like to just slice it.

Herrine: That seems thin enough. Mark: We're gonna break up some buffalo.

Herrine: So, I'm just gonna hand-tear this. Mark: You can grate some Parmesan cheese and have it ready for when the pizza comes out, and we're just gonna sprinkle it on top.

Herrine: Mark said that I need a full wine bottle to roll out the dough.

Mark: You're gonna need to use a wine bottle, probably, because the dough is very hard, because it's so cold.

Herrine: The bad news is I forgot and drank the bottle I was gonna use. So I need to go buy a new one. I got the wine bottle, and now I'm ready to roll my pizza. Everything so far has gone surprisingly well. The tomato sauce that I made, it tastes very similar to yours.

Mark: Good, good. That's what we were hoping for.

Herrine: I have my oven on 500. I have my baking pan.

Mark: Wait, what's that for?

Herrine: You said to cook it on the baking pan.

Mark: Yeah, but that baking pan needs to be in the oven. It needs to be hot. Don't burn yourself! [oven clattering]

Herrine: Quick question. Does it matter, like, what rack it's on in the oven?

Mark: I think you said your heat source was from the top, so we want to go low.

Herrine: Oh, OK, so the very lowest rack?

Mark: Yeah.

Herrine: So, I took the dough out of the fridge. Looks like this.

Mark: Looks good. Except for that little hole you put in there yesterday. You got bubbles on it? You just pressed on something.

Herrine: I don't really see any bubbles.

Mark: OK, good.

Herrine: Is that a good thing?

Mark: Yeah.

Herrine: Oh, OK. Yeah.

Mark: Ready to rock.

Herrine: Yes.

Mark: We're ready to roll.

Herrine: We're ready to roll.

Mark: You got your wine bottle? Or your rolling pin?

Herrine: Yes.

Mark: Perfect, all right. Dip the dough in the flour. Flour it up. Both sides, get it all floured, the whole thing. Throw some flour on the counter. You're going to roll the dough now. Kind of place the bottle in the center. Right now - I mean, grab the bottle like, you know....

Herrine: Oh, like this?

Mark: I'm trying to figure out what your left... your watch is on your left?

Herrine: This is my left. This is my right.

Mark: OK, so hold onto the neck of the bottle with your left hand, and kinda grab, but stick your finger - is it a hollowed-out bottle?

Herrine: Yes.

Mark: Yeah, just, like, stick a few fingers in there and put, you know, this part of your hand on top of the bottle. There you go. Press and roll out.

Herrine: Like this? OK.

Mark: Move away from you. Right, good. Now pick up, go back to the center, and pull it towards you. But you got to go all the way off the edge of the dough. All right, so now you kind of got, like, a square.

Herrine: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Now turn it, like, on a 45. Kinda. And roll out that way. Do the center out. You just want to start rolling from the center out, but make it round. You're doing great. You hear a little popping and crackling? So, what you're doing is you're rolling out the fermentation. My dough, we roll the fermentation out. So you're gonna lose that barley, hoppy flavor. Now what you want to do is flip it over. Flour the top. Put some flour on top of it. That'll stop it from sticking to the counter. Pick it up and flip it over, and then as soon as it's rolled out, we're gonna place it on a peel.

Herrine: What if I don't have a pizza peel?

Mark: You can use a baking sheet. Upside down. And I really can't tell how big it is from here.

Herrine: I have a measuring tape.

Mark: You really do have a measuring tape.

Herrine: It's, like, 13 inches.

Mark: OK. I hope that fits on your baking tray. Before you even do that, sprinkle some flour onto your baking tray. We don't like to use that much flour on the peel, but for beginners, I suggest using it. When you take the pie out, you may want to, like, brush the bottom a little.

Herrine: OK.

Mark: Get rid of some of that excess. But, you know, if you don't have a lot of experience getting a pizza off a peel, flour's your friend in this case. Let's get that dough on top of the peel. Now you want to get the dough as close to the left edge of the peel as possible. Get it all the way to the edge, to the left. Don't worry about that hanging over. Get it all the way to the left. Perfect. All right, you're ready to go. You know, all right, you know what? Let's practice doing it on the counter. And we're going to go from the baking tray onto the counter, as if you were putting it in the oven. Now go all the way in, not - towards - OK, good, great! You did it!

Herrine: Wait, was that not how I was supposed to do it?

Mark: No, but if you want to make sure that you're in the oven, you're all the way in the oven.

Herrine: Next?

Mark: Next. You ready?

Herrine: Uh-huh.

Mark: Now, what we're going to do is, it's the sauce and the two cheeses. Get rid of the wine bottle. Put it far away. We don't want any accidents. Right in the middle. Now, you know how to do this. Just drop the spoon in the center. Start with small circles, smaller, and then just start working your way to the edge. You can make bigger circles. [laughing]

Herrine: Ah!

Mark: I think you're good.

Herrine: OK.

Mark: Now get your low-moisture cheese, thin-sliced. Now you want to grab the fresh mozzarella. Cover the red now. Cover the red spots.

Herrine: Mm-hmm.

Mark: All right, that's it. Let's get it in the oven. You're gonna put it all the way into the oven. Start shaking it off. Once it hits that thing, then like you did earlier. You got the perfect view. You did great.

Herrine: Oh, I did it! That wasn't too bad! Right? I'll see you in 10 minutes?

Mark: All right - no - yes, OK.

Herrine: No?

Mark: Yeah.

Herrine: Wait, hold on.

Mark: I just don't wanna leave you. [laughing]

Cameraman: What are you doing?

Herrine: Mark said that I have to check on the pizza, and because we don't have an oven light, I'm using my flashlight and just making sure that the dough is cooking. And then when the cheese starts bubbling, I'm gonna put aluminum foil on top.

Mark: You know, I'm not a fan of that, when the cheese browns on top.

Herrine: Uh-huh. Yeah, you don't see that at the restaurant. I think it's ready. Yeah, there's, like, little charred bits on the ends.

Mark: Wow! Now it looks really, really good. Listen, just sprinkle some cheese on top. Let's cut it. Do you have a pizza cutter? I prefer you use a knife.

Herrine: This is what I have.

Mark: Yeah, perfect. [crunching] It sounds nice and crispy.

Herrine: It does!

Mark: I love that crisp. Throw some basil on it and eat it. Are you gonna cry when you bite into this?

Herrine: I don't know.

Mark: OK, take a bite.

Herrine: Show you - ooh, I got flour everywhere.

Mark: You did great. I gotta get you a pizza cutter. See, that looks really, really good on the bottom. A little bit more heat is all we need. The crust looks fantastic. I think we just need to get the bottom a little, you know, a little bit more heat on the bottom. Another thing you can do is use cornmeal on the bottom.

Herrine: Then is there anything else?

Mark: I think that's it. I mean, it was really, really close.

Herrine: If I could rate this, 10 being, like, the closest thing to your pizza, I would give this, like, a... very generous seven.

Mark: Uh-huh, OK. First time, like, you know, cooking it in an oven that, you know, you have no clue what it's gonna do to the pizza, I think you did great.

Herrine: But other than that, I'm, like, shocked.

Mark: Don't go opening up a pizzeria now. [laughing]

Herrine: I might! I was not expecting a home-cooked version to come even close to what it was.

Mark: Do you think I'd steer you wrong?

Herrine: No, I never doubted you. I doubted my cooking skills, this oven, and everything that I have.

Mark: Listen, you did it.

Herrine: All right. Thank you, Mark! [pizza crunching] I am shocked at how good this came out. I have a lot more confidence in myself. Not only was this my first time making pizza at home, from scratch completely, but it was my first time trying to make pizza that is arguably the most famous in New York, and I came pretty close to it. I feel like a lot of you who are watching this will get a lot closer to the actual thing, but for what I had and my capability, this came very close to the restaurant version. If 10 was, like, the closest, like, perfect, what would you give this?

Carl: 8.6.

Herrine: Wow, I'll take it!