Pizza Expo 2026 Names International Pizza Challenge Winners in Las Vegas

The 42nd International Pizza Expo wrapped March 26 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and the year's most instructive result came from an unexpected dough format. Mirko D'Agata, executive chef of Pizzeria No. 900 in Montreal, Quebec, won the 2026 Pizza Maker of the Year title using a pan pizza, a format well outside his restaurant's Neapolitan identity. D'Agata, already the 2025 Napoletana STG World Champion, first claimed the Pan Division among 730 challengers spread across eight competition divisions, then defeated every other divisional winner in the head-to-head mystery-ingredient bake-off that determines the World Champion.

If you make pasta for a living, or even just for Sunday dinner, that cross-format dominance is worth paying attention to. Pan pizza and fresh sheet pasta are built on the same foundational decisions: hydration, bulk fermentation time, and how far you let a thick dough relax before shaping. A pizzaiolo who wins outside his specialty didn't stumble into it; he built technique deep enough to travel. That is the first thing worth stealing from this expo.

The second came from the Best of the Best competition, where Carmine Candito of Miami's O Munaviello defeated Tore Trupiano of Mangia e Beve and Ryan Ososky of DTown Pizzeria using three mystery ingredients: portobello mushrooms, pears and pork belly. That combination is a standard agrodolce building block in Italian cooking, one that pasta makers deploy routinely in autumnal applications. When competition judges at the largest pizza trade show in North America reward that flavor profile, it tells you something concrete about where ingredient-forward Italian menus are heading in 2026.

Wilhelm Rodriguez of Papa's Pizza in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, won the Bacio Legacy Division with a pizza his daughter Shawnae conceptualized: a Bacio cheese blend topped with orange-peach jam, arugula, peppadew peppers and pancetta. Pancetta has been a pasta staple for generations, but seeing it win on a competition stage built around cheese innovation reinforces that cured pork products remain the connective tissue between pizza and pasta menu development right now.

Loredana Passariello of La Leggenda Pizzeria took the Neapolitan Division. Ciro Lubrano Lavadera won the International Italian Sandwich Championship. On the World Pizza Games floor, Francis Tolu claimed the acrobatic dough tossing title with a total score of 415.4, edging Jamie Culliton by just 0.5 points.

The third lesson is the most transferable. IPC coordinator Michael LaMarca told competitors before the show opened that "winners of these competitions are the ones testing and baking before these competitions start." On the pasta side of the kitchen, that translates directly. Consistent fresh pasta comes from the test-rolling you do before service, not from what you do once guests are seated. D'Agata's back-to-back championships confirmed the principle at the highest level.

The show also introduced a Classica Division this year, open to Neapolitan-style rounds baked directly on the floor of a high-temp dome oven, with a 12-minute competition window and a required topping beyond sauce and cheese. That narrow format rewards the same sauce-to-dough ratio awareness that determines whether a pasta al forno holds together or turns into a pool at the table. The expo ran alongside more than 500 exhibitors and 80 education demos and seminars, including pasta suppliers, specialty flour producers and Italian ingredient showcases. The overlap between these two industries has never been more visible on a single show floor.