Egremont — Hilltown Hot Pies, chef and pizzaiolo Rafi Bildner’s mobile and pop-up pizza business, is setting down firm roots in the Berkshires. On Friday, April 7, longtime chef and owner of John Andrews Farmhouse Restaurant Dan Smith sold the legendary Egremont restaurant property to Bildner.
According to a press release sent to The Edge by Bildner, he had long been looking for a property to evolve his mobile artisanal pizza operation, Hilltown Hot Pies, into a physical space. The John Andrews property was a natural fit for his dream of a rural pizza-focused destination, a place for building community, and a celebration of the New England landscape. Bildner built a reputation for his naturally leavened dough using regional grains and for his inventive pizzas featuring ingredients from area farms.
“Since moving back to the area to start my mobile pizza truck and pop-up business a few years ago, I’ve looked all over the region for the right property,” Bildner said. “I’ve always hoped that this eventual restaurant would be more than just a place for extraordinary pizza, but also a space for growing food, creating community, and encouraging connection to the land and our natural environment. It’s a dream to start working to bring this corner of the Berkshire woods into its next chapter as Hilltown Hot Pies.”
The restaurant will undergo a series of renovations, primarily the addition of a wood-fired oven and pizza making infrastructure, which will be at the heart of the Hilltown Hot Pies menu. Bildner also hopes to reinvigorate the property’s outdoor environment, with the expansion of vegetable gardens and growing space, as well as places for communal gathering in the fields and woods behind the restaurant. Bildner said, “The 1790s restaurant building will be the perfect platform for a farmhouse pizzeria, and with the ample land out back, it’s an ideal environment to create a seasonal pizza-beer-wine garden. Taking over this legendary Berkshires property is a dream come true.”
While searching for a potential property for Hilltown Hot Pies last year, Bildner traveled to Southern Italy to embark on a self-supported bike journey, riding 1000 miles from Campania to Puglia, which he called the “Pedaling for Pizza” tour. He returned again to the region this fall to apprentice in a renowned family trattoria in rural Campania, as well as help with the harvest for their winery. Throughout his travels, Bildner met with farmers and pizzaioli, chefs, winemakers, cheesemakers, restaurateurs, and craftspeople, looking for inspiration to bring back to his future restaurant stateside. “One of my greatest hopes with this next chapter of my pizza business is to have it be a platform for showcasing the traditions and craft of the Italian South with my community here in the Berkshires,” Bildner said. “I was so blessed to learn culinary traditions and techniques from extraordinary craftspeople throughout Campania, and I can’t wait to share these flavors, products, and recipes with my guests at the future restaurant. I hope it can be a little slice of Sud Italia in the Berkshire hills!”
After decades of proprietorship turning John Andrews into a revered culinary destination, former chef/owner Dan Smith is thrilled that a young Berkshire hospitality entrepreneur is committing to taking the farmhouse property into its next iteration. Smith helmed the restaurant as the chef and owner for 33 years, first acquiring it in 1990. Along the way, he received many accolades and was considered a pioneer in the Berkshires farm-to-table movement and a critical supporter of the region’s local food system.
“I feel grateful that Rafi will be carrying on the restaurant and his own vision for it,” Smith said. “I can see that Rafi has the passion, intelligence, enthusiasm, and determination to steward this restaurant into the future. I look forward to seeing his dreams unfold and wish him much success. I know that our community will open their arms and support him and his vision the same way they did for us.”
While there is no clear opening date set for the new Hilltown Hot Pies—with much renovation and work to be completed on the building—Bildner notes that, in an effort to make use of the property before construction is completed, he hopes to create a pop-up using the outdoor space with his mobile pizza truck, and then open the restaurant fully in the coming year.
Hilltown Hot Pies is pizzaiolo Rafi Bildner’s mobile artisanal pizza-making business, and soon to be brick and mortar restaurant in the Berkshires in Egremont. After working in political and community organizing, farming, rural policy, and as an adventure travel guide around the world, Bildner launched Hilltown Hot Pies in 2019 with a summer pizza pop-up in the Hilltowns of the Berkshires, before returning to the area in 2020 to grow the business and look for a brick and mortar location. Prior to going out on his own, he honed his craft working at a renowned sourdough pizzeria in San Francisco, and has traveled extensively in southern Italy, apprenticing and learning from pizzaioli and chefs around Campania. He attended culinary school for pastry and cuisine at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa, Canada and worked at restaurants and pizzerias in New Haven, Conn. while at college at Yale. Over the last few years, Bildner has taken his mobile pizza oven to farms around the region, creating temporary “pizza farm” pop-ups, utilizing pizza as a canvas to showcase the bounty of the regional food system. The mission of Hilltown Hot Pies is to use sourdough (naturally leavened) pizza as a medium for showcasing the agricultural landscape of the Berkshires, and as a way to create community and connection in our rural area. More can be found on Hilltown Hot Pie’s website.
