Anthony Ludovici, Anto’s Pizza Romana & Italian Market, Conway, South Carolina | Hot Take

A Pizzeria’s First Year Wins with Anthony Ludovici, Anto’s Pizza Romana & Italian Market, Conway, South Carolina

Story Caption: Anthony Ludovici DeBrigida and his wife Carly opened Anto’s Pizza Romana & Italian Market in Conway, South Carolina in the fall 2024. The couple has had a huge first year, including Anthony’s focaccia winning first place at the Pizza World Cup in Rome, Italy in 2025. Photo courtesy of Anto’s Pizza Romano & Italian Market.

First year goals & meeting them

My goal for the business before we opened was always to focus on quality over quantity. I wanted to bring in high quality ingredients and put my attention to detail in each and every pie, rather than just push as many pizzas out the door as possible. The goal was to make enough to support ourselves and have time for my wife and I to run our own business and still have time for ourselves. Personally, I wanted to start competing, which I was always nervous to do. I finally did for the first time earlier this year at Expo in Vegas and then a couple months ago in Rome. We’ve been extremely fortunate our first year to be able to meet and exceed just about every goal we had when starting out last year.

Pinnacle of first year

There was a lot that led us to South Carolina to open our own shop. Our opening night we had a lot of family come to help out. My sister flew down from Philadelphia and working with her again just like when we were younger was special. But after opening, the pinnacle of our first year would probably be winning our first world title with our family traveling with us to be there.

Key to winning in Rome

Aside from the support from my family that was there, I’ve been lucky to have made some really great friends and mentors in the industry. They helped me stay cool and gave me the confidence to believe in what I was doing.

Local recognition

The local community has been such a huge part of our success. It started with just posting on our Facebook page, I think being myself and caring about the product we’re putting out resonated with people here. It was great to see how proud and excited they were for us when we got back from Italy, from our customers to the local politicians. We’ve gotten so much love and support from the community, which has also helped us win some local awards in our first year as well.

Year Two

I think my goals to top our first year is to just continue to work on my craft and improve the product as much as I can. To be able to get out there and compete some more, and keep trying to pursue our goals from year one — to connect with the community and try to put Conway, South Carolina on the map as a pizza destination.

On the Anto’s Pizza Romana & Italian Market concept:

A little mom and pop shop that is pretty much someone that just likes to experiment making pizza at home, but on a slightly larger scale. I’m the only pizza maker, and once we sell out of our available dough for the day we are done. I pretty much took every class I have taken in my career and mashed them all into a couple styles that we serve at the shop

On Anto’s Pizza Styles & Dough:

We serve two different styles at the shop — “NY style” round and Roman square. Our round pie is more of a combination of NY and Neapolitan style. Our dough is a bit of a higher hydration than normal and is made of two different flours and 50% biga starter. Our Roman dough is an 85% hydration direct dough that is fermented for 72 hours. Rather than using traditional Roman pans, we bake them in 16×16 trays. We also use this dough as the focaccia for our sandwiches.

Learn more about Anto’s Pizza Romana & Italian Market and on Instagram.

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