Sacre Bleu! French Pizza Maker Sets New Guinness World Record

When I first read that a pizza maker in France had broken a threshold in the Guinness Book of World Records for "Most Variety of Cheeses on Pizza," I thought, well, that's got to be like, 70 cheeses or something, right?

Wrong. I was dead wrong. This rabble-rouser used 254 different varieties of fromage on the same pizza pie. I think I actually shouted out loud when I read that number. Grub Street has the details.

The brave pizza chef, Benoit Bruel of Déliss' Pizza, hails from Lyon. Bruel had actually broken the record back in February, but he still had to finish up the administrative work of gathering the "required evidence" of the act (I'm assuming a bunch of not-so-fun documentation of every ingredient). The previous record, set by Johnny Di Francesco in Melbourne, Australia, was a puny 154 cheeses. 154 cheeses is for mere mortals. Legends use 254. But the paperwork is finished and the deed is now considered official.

Here's a picture of the pie on the restaurant's Instagram page, along with his caption, saying in French, "Youhoooo, it took a while but that's it, the Guiness Book validated my record last Thursday! It's official !!! My certificate arrives this week as well as the list of cheeses 😍😍" (Thank you for your service, Google Translate.)

There were purportedly three more cheeses in the mixture, added in last minute, but for whatever reason they didn't get tallied, so the official number stands at 254. Grub Street carefully observed a video of Bruel weighing out portions of cheese, and found specific varieties like an eight-month Comté 8, raclette, Tomme Artisanale Suisse de la Venoge aux truffes, and Manigodine, "among several hundred others."

Some heroes are born. Some heroes fight their way to the top. In this case, our hero was forged in the mighty heat of a pizza oven, swimming in dozens upon dozens of varieties of cheese, until the almighty tome of Guinness recognized the monumental achievement and the rest is history.