Tony & Alba’s Pizza & Pasta, a restaurant in San Jose, California, has unveiled a futuristic pizza called The Jetsons. The pizza was created with the help of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence tool. San Jose chef-restaurateur Al Vallorz has been designing a monthly pizza for years, but he was looking for something new to create for Father’s Day when he had the idea to use ChatGPT. The recipe generated by the tool consists of pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni, sliced sausage links, bacon, Memphis barbecue sauce, red onions, and cilantro, all on a classic dough crust.
When customers ask about the origins of the AI pizza, Vallorz and his wife simply tell them it’s a computer-generated recipe. Younger people try it because it’s AI, Vallorz said. Older people say, ‘What’s AI?’. The couple has thought about using ChatGPT to help answer the phone when staff gets busy, using a different voice each time. Thank you for calling Tony & Alba’s, Sinatra’s voice could croon. What would you like tonight?
However, the couple thinks technology may be missing the human touch when devising recipes for the kitchen. For instance, the July pizza of the month will be all-human generated, with toppings being selected by Vallorz’s wife Diana for her birthday month. But The Jetsons pizza will remain on the menu for the rest of June, assuming people continue to ask for it and the kitchen can source its ingredients.
For the restaurant’s co-founder, 84-year-old Alba Salciccia, the pizza passed the taste test, despite being AI-generated. The Vallorz couple believes that while ChatGPT may be helpful for generating ideas and answering phone calls, nothing beats the expertise and creativity of a human chef when it comes to creating delicious food. You can’t replace a paesano, says Vallorz. They’ll always give you great food and a great time.
