In Good Company: Rich Goodwin
Of Bing Bong, "nonna-style pizza with a northern accent"
In Good Company features friends of our agency - not clients - who we admire within the world of food, and who we think you should know more about.
Bing Bong featured in Time Out’s 20 Best London Restaurants for Pizza at the end of 2024, described as “chunky and pleasingly crust-heavy pies” – the antidote to our city’s obsession with thin, crispy pizzas.
Passionate about sustainability and ingredient traceability, Rich Goodwin prioritises local, high-quality produce in his baking and cooking, and he’s now in residence with Bing Bong at You Call the Shots in E9.
Born into a family of bakers in Liverpool, Rich’s love for food - fuelled by 90s Pizza Hut trips - led to his first job as a KP/doughboy in a small Italian restaurant. Though short-lived, the experience sparked a lifelong passion for hospitality, cooking and, most importantly, pizza.
He went on to hone his skill in kitchens - while testing countless home-oven pizza experiments on his flatmates - before joining the opening team at Santa Maluco in Liverpool, where he eventually became head pizzaiolo and kitchen manager. A move to Kent followed, where he spent two years at Grain & Hearth mastering sourdough and viennoiserie. In London, he ran the kitchen at Mike’s in Peckham, later working at Flor in Borough Market and Bermondsey, followed by Pophams under Phil King. His experience also includes a stint at The Old Fire Station Bakery in Manchester and recent stages at Hart Bageri in Copenhagen and Flout! in Belfast, continuously refining his craft.
Tell us, where are you right now?
I’m in my dough room upstairs at You Call The Shots on Morning Lane in Hackney - the bar where Bing Bong pizza is currently in residency. The term ‘dough room’ could be a bit of stretch, I wrestled a commercial mixer and 200kg of flour up a narrow, creaky staircase and retro-fitted an office, but it’s cosy and fit for purpose.
What food item(s) are you loving most at the moment?
When the weather is like it is at the moment, I find myself craving (and obsessing over) congee every single day. My partner is a great cook and luckily makes my favourite version of the dish that I’ve ever had, even putting up with my near-daily requests for it. Whilst I’m loving congee the most at the moment, I had dinner at Chishuru in Fitzrovia on Monday and that was one of those near-perfect meals you have every so often in life that really stays with you, from the opening one-bite snack, through the onugbu main course, to the egusi ice cream, meringue sponge and blackberry situation, all playing on my mind ever since.
Where are you planning to travel to next?
I’m travelling to Bansko, Bulgaria in early February for a much needed visit to the mountains. Snowboarding followed by a trip to the hot springs and dinner and dancing in a Bulgarian mehana every night is my idea of heaven. I’m following that trip up with a more work-focused one to New York City later in the year, for some research and work experience.
What's your favourite food book?
Among my most prized possessions are my grandfather’s handwritten books of recipes, one bread-focused and one pastry-focused. A gift from a dear friend years ago of Chad Robertson’s Tartine Bread was the foundation for my initial introduction to the dark arts of sourdough bread. Pizza-wise, Dan Richer’s The Joy of Pizza is an indispensable guide to almost anything within the discipline. Both of David McMillan’s Joe Beef cookbooks have been well-thumbed in our house, and the more recently-released Cooking For People by Mike Davies is well on its way to that esteemed classification too.
Where do you most want a booking, whether to eat or to stay?
My favourite city in the world is Montréal, so give me a booking at the Four Seasons with a lunch reservation at Elena and a dinner reservation at any of Joe Beef, Le Vin Papillon, Mon Lapin or Maison Boulud and I definitely won’t be unhappy.
Where's your best hidden gem, anywhere in the world?
I lived in Camberwell for years (to be honest, I’ve spiritually never left) and Silk Road continuously blew my head off an almost weekly basis. It’s a Xinjiang-style Chinese restaurant which I thought was very well known until I started working in East London and there was an increasing amount of blank expressions when its name was mentioned. So, whilst it may not be a ‘hidden gem’ in the strictest sense, it’s a really great restaurant and I implore you to visit. If Camberwell is too far south for you, get off at Elephant and Castle and grab a huge Venezuelan arepa from Los Chamos in the arches by the station. North of the river? Bolland & Crust in Tottenham or Tay Do in Shoreditch.
Snog, marry, avoid: bread, rice, pasta?
Marry bread, snog pasta, kill rice. I’m aware that I’m loving and obsessing over a rice based dish at the moment, but I can’t betray my heart. Bread is a family business, and a life-long love affair as well as paying the bills. If that isn’t marriage material then I don’t know what is. A quick snog with a saucy Italian pasta doesn’t sound unpleasant either, if we’re being honest.
Be sure to check out Bing Bong asap, and more from us soon!