The OTTO story begins with two chefs from dramatically different culinary backgrounds united by the belief that pizza is serious food with the potential to transcend its "take-out chow" reputation by re-imagining the possibilities that exist beyond red sauce and mozzarella.

A native of Nantucket, Anthony Allen founded his first pizza shop on the island when he was 17, expanding a few years later to Martha’s Vineyard. Mike Keon worked in the galleys on fishing boats off the coast of Alaska for more than 12 years. The two met just north of Boston as the owners of neighboring restaurants. During downtimes, they’d swap stories of their culinary adventures. Like the time Anthony built a pizza oven from a scavenged 55-gallon oil drum and taught the locals in Tanzania how to make pizza. Or Mike's attempt to cook a full Thanksgiving dinner on a fishing boat in the middle of a violent storm.

With Anthony’s decades of pizza experience, Mike’s penchant for combining ingredients that aren’t necessarily obvious, and a shared drive to take a staple food to another level, OTTO was born in Portland, Maine in June 2009.