A French Chef Broke a Guinness World Record by Adding 254 Types of Cheese to a Single Pizza

Pizza is something usually associated with speed: how quickly one cooks in a hot oven, how fast a big chain can get one to your house, maybe even how soon after it hits the table you can eat it without blistering off the skin on the roof of your mouth. But a French chef has chosen to do the opposite, reports Grub Street, taking his time to put together his world record-breaking culinary masterpiece — a pizza featuring more different types of cheese than any other to come before it.

At Déliss’ Pizza, his Lyon restaurant, chef Benoît Bruel set out to break the Guinness World Record for the most varieties of cheese on a pizza. Previously, the record for how many cheeses were on a single slice was just 154. Bruel absolutely trounced that in his February entry, upping the stakes to a whopping 254 types of cheese. As of last week, the Guinness folks declared the evidence and the attempt valid and bestowed their official title. 

Bruel set out to break the record because of his belief that France should own the record because it is known for its cheeses. In the video, he actually puts an impressive 257 cheeses on, but the last three were not included in the final count for technical reasons. He claims he added them for flavor, a fascinating idea given how little of each cheese he appears to add in the video on the Guinness Facebook page — weighed out on a tiny scale. Reportedly the total was about 800 grams of cheese (about 1.75 pounds), so about three ounces per type. 

The pizza itself seems otherwise standard, rolled out to about 12 inches, spread with tomato sauce, and then the cheese dumped on top. To hold in the cheese, the edges of the crust were folded up, almost more like a galette than a traditional pizza. 

It seems unlikely that diners might get to dig into the dairy-dense delight anytime soon: the process took around two hours, and the food cost shot to about $1,000.