The Littlest Pizzas?

“Roll it, roll it, roll it,” chef Loris Favaron shouts to a group of 22 kindergartners one morning. He is explaining how to make a pizza--not to mention keeping their attention long enough to finish his demonstration.

The kids from Beverly Vista School are on a field trip to Mezzaluna in Beverly Hills. The 5-year-olds walked over to the Italian restaurant with an entourage including a teacher, a couple of crossing guards and several parents. The youngsters sit around marble-topped tables set up in front of a wood-burning oven, fidgeting. The adults are at another table drinking tall glasses of Evian.

“I prepared this for you early this morning,” says the chef, handing each of the students a hunk of dough the size of a golf ball. “Let’s see what you can do. With one hand, press the dough down. See how it spreads out? Keep working the dough.”

The class doesn’t seem particularly interested in learning how to make a pizza. They want to see some action.

“When are you going to throw it up in the air?” asks one.

“Why don’t you spin it on your ear?” suggests another.

Favaron ignores their requests and begins to ladle a little tomato sauce on top of his demonstration pizza. He tops it with some oregano, scatters a little mozzarella over that and then makes a flower in the middle with four leaves of basil. “That’s the way we do it in Italy,” he tells the children.

“Put some pepperoni on it,” demands one of the students.

Soon the entire class begins to chant: pep-per-ro-ni, pep-per-ro-ni, pep-per-ro-ni.

By now, Favaron, who looks a lot like Burt Young (who played the brother-in-law in “Rocky”), seems exhausted. He pops the pizza into the oven and collects all the dough balls. Then he asks the class to come up in threes to take a peek at the pizza baking, but since no one is paying attention to him, he walks over and gets the first group and escorts them to the oven.

After all the boys and girls have had a look, it’s time to eat. When one student says she’s not allowed to eat her pizza because it’s Passover, Favaron quickly grills a plate of fresh vegetables. Suddenly, as the eating begins, the noise level drops.

Mark Baran, who says he learned to talk and write his name a long time ago--when he was 3--deems the pizza “just fine.”

Lisa Rose Gilson says she normally eats two pieces of pepperoni pizza but since she walked a long way--three blocks--she could probably eat more.

Then the teacher, Ms.Townsend, announces it’s time to go back to school. “It will soon be time for lunch,” she says.