Three award-winning pizza makers near Seattle are putting the Pacific Northwest on the map as a world-class pizza destination, united by sourdough and friendship.
KINGSTON, Wash. — Think you know pizza? Three men from the Puget Sound area are here to change your mind — and they’ve got the trophies to prove it.
They’re not Italian. They’re not from New York or Chicago. But Will Grant, Lee Kindell and Niles Peacock have quietly become three of the most decorated pizza makers in the world, operating just a few miles apart across the water in what’s being called the Puget Sound Pizza Triangle.
“They say, ‘They’re from Seattle. They don’t know pizza,’” Grant said. “Then they try ours and they go, ‘Wow. That’s really good pizza.’ Sometimes people say that’s the best pizza they’ve had in their life.”
Kindell owns MOTO Pizza in Edmonds, where his Dungeness crab pizza just won best Detroit-style pizza in the world at the World Pizza Championships in Las Vegas last month. He calls it his “love letter to the Pacific Northwest.”
Also in Edmonds, Peacock’s New York-style pizza won best pizza in America at the 2023 Galbani U.S. Pizza Cup, among a long list of other accolades.
Grant, based across Puget Sound in Kingston, is the keeper of a sourdough starter that’s been in his family since the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 — and it turns out to be the secret ingredient tying all three pizzerias together. All three men use that same starter from Grant’s Sourdough Willy’s.
Last year, Grant became the only American ever to win the prestigious lifetime achievement award at the Pizza World Cup in Rome. But he’s quick to share the spotlight.
“This is something beyond just us in the Pacific Northwest,” Grant said. “This is about the love of pizza that we have and how we want to share that with our customers.”
Peacock and Kindell credit Grant as a mentor who helped shape their careers — a rarity in a business that can be fiercely competitive.
“A lot of people gatekeep these days,” Kindell said. “Will is an open book. I try to emulate that myself.”
“If Will needed anything at the drop of a hat, I’d come and help him,” Peacock said. “Same thing with Lee. He’d do the same for us.”
Despite competing for customers, the three say they never really think of each other as rivals.
“I like to say we never think competitively,” Kindell said. “We think creatively.”
“We’re trying to achieve the same thing — to get people to want another bite, want another sip,” Peacock said. “The question that drives us all is, is this the best we can do? We’re always pushing each other to do better.”
“This is more important than ever — us looking after each other, taking care of each other, supporting each other, encouraging each other,” Kindell said. “All of these things that create community are the No. 1 priority on this entire planet for everything that we do.”
Grant’s ultimate ambition is to put Seattle sourdough style on the world pizza map right alongside New York, New Haven, Detroit and Chicago as a recognized American pizza tradition. Given what these three have already pulled off, that might not be such a long shot.
“Here we are, three non-Italians in the Pacific Northwest making the best pizza we can,” Grant said. “This is something beyond just us. This is about the love of pizza that we have and how we want to share that with the world.”
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