Who is Matt Ryles

Matt Ryles is the pizza chef at The Watch House in West Bexington, Dorset. Classically French trained, he worked his way up through professional kitchens before a fascination with bread and dough turned into a career of its own, running dough production across a seven-restaurant group and later winning pizza competitions in London against some of the country's best-known pizzerias, without a restaurant of his own behind him.

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At The Watch House, Matt works the site's wood-fired oven, using a 72-hour slow ferment and a lower hydration than a classic Neapolitan dough for a firmer, more digestible bake. In five months, the pizza programme has reached two national finals. He's currently a finalist to become an ambassador for Italian flour mill Molino Dallagiovanna, and is through three of four categories at the PAPA Awards.

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He uses San Marzano tomatoes and Italian flour for the essentials, sourcing everything else, from cured meats to cheese and basil, as locally as he can.

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“I've learned to build my dough around the fermentation I want, so I'm controlling the process rather than constantly chasing it.”