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The Perfect Loaf
Maurizio Leo

Maurizio Leo

Maurizio Leo is the creator of The Perfect Loaf, the leading independent resource for baking sourdough bread and pizza at home, and the James Beard Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Loaf and The Perfect Pizza. He lives in Albuquerque, NM, with his wife and two sons, and he's been labeled "Bob Ross but for bread." Read his full story →
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Expertise

  • Maurizio is the author of two cookbooks: The Perfect Loaf (2022), winner of the 2023 James Beard Foundation Book Award and the 2023 IACP Cookbook Award and a New York Times bestseller, and The Perfect Pizza (2026), his follow-up on sourdough pizza and focaccia.
  • He has baked and written about naturally leavened bread daily since founding The Perfect Loaf in 2013—the site won Saveur Blog Awards in 2016 and 2018 and was a 2019 Webby nominee.
  • His work and recipes have been featured by The New York Times, Food52, King Arthur Baking, WIRED, Food & Wine, and TASTE.
  • Maurizio is primarily a self-taught baker, though he has since taken professional-level baking courses at École Internationale de Boulangerie in France, The San Francisco Baking Institute, and at the WSU Bread Lab with King Arthur in Washington State.
  • He hosts small-group bread travel and workshops, most recently in western Sicily.

Background

Maurizio grew up in his family’s Italian restaurant, Mimmo’s Ristorante, in Albuquerque, where his father’s pizza dough was his first education in fermentation. He took the long way back: after obtaining a master’s degree in computer science and years as a software engineer, he founded The Perfect Loaf in 2013. While he loves the craft and creativitiy of making bread and pizza, his engineering side still shows through in every recipe on the site. Each recipe is thoroughly tested over many iterations in his home kitchen, with dough temperatures, fermentation times, and results logged before anything is published. He wrote his first cookbook, The Perfect Loaf, after nearly a decade of working with dough. The James Beard Foundation named it the best bread book of 2023 and it won an IACP award the same year. He lives in Albuquerque with his wife and two sons and bakes and writes for The Perfect Loaf.
Read the full story on the About page →

5 Quick Things About Maurizio

  1. The sourdough starter I use for baking is the very same one I created in 2012
  2. No, my sourdough starter doesn’t have a name (though it’s definitely a family member at this point)
  3. I’m unusually obsessed with temperature
  4. I love traveling and find myself in a different country at least a few times a year (usually in search of great bread)
  5. He’s been called the “Bob Ross of Bread”

Posts by Maurizio Leo

the perfect loaf spelt sourdough
Freshly Milled Flour

Spelt Sourdough Bread

Freshly milled spelt sourdough brings incredible flavor to this delicate bread.

April 14, 2016
rye sourdough and smorrebrod
Freshly Milled Flour

Rye Sourdough and Smørrebrød

It’s been cold here in New Mexico, like really, really cold. When it’s ten degrees outside you only want one of a few things: 1)

January 20, 2016
Recipes

White Sonora Sourdough

This recipe uses delicious white Sonora flour for a creamy crumb and mouthwatering flavor.

January 4, 2016
the perfect loaf fig and fennel sourdough
Specialty Ingredient

Fig and Fennel Sourdough

I have childhood memories of my dad trying desperately to grow fig trees (as if he knew I’d one day make this fig and fennel

August 13, 2015