Dear {NOMEUTENTE}Premio Birra Moretti Gran Cru, to which we will soon dedicate a special release, barges into this issue of Identità di Pizza, as in the finals in Milan, on Monday 19th October, Riccardo Gaspari of Brite in Cortina d’Ampezzo (Belluno) won with one of the most Italian dishes, in term of roots, and one of the less Dolomitic too: pizza.
Riccardo didn’t leave anything unplanned: the cheese, a creamy type of camembert, is produced by the family dairy farm with the milk from the family cows, just like the pigs for the speck. For the dough, for which he also used 20% barley flour, he asked a valid pizza chef in Cortina to teach him the basics but he knows himself he still needs to learn. The rest, the extra oomph, was given by his intelligent use of beer.
This is not the place to think about the prize itself. What counts is that what we call the New Italian Pizza, gourmet pizza or signature pizza is growing more and more and spreading everywhere, further and further from its Neapolitan roots. We can see all this as a planetary system which has Naples instead of the sun in its centre while all around there are different worlds and ways of thinking, conceiving and creating pizzas.
There’s also a second discerning element that characterises this growth, this freedom of interpreting this Italian dish par excellence: Milan. The capital of Lombardy, where all the trends and novelties that over time become established are born, has always snubbed pizza. Milanese people «el ga i dané» they have money, and margherite, napoletana and calzoni are cheap food, suitable for students, grandmothers and grandchildren, friends right before or after a film, so why waste time with poor food? This is less and less the case, new pizzerias with new concepts are opening. Less than a week ago, Bioesserì in via Fatebenefratelli 2, tel. +39.02.89071052, opened while in this very newsletter Carlo Passera tells us about Taverna Gourmet. A very happy moment.
Paolo Marchi, content by Carlo Passera and Luciana Squadrilli |
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Original gourmet pizza Pizza is decisively changing appearance and activities that make a curious public, interested in quality aware of this new appearance are increasing. Even abroad, the gourmet approach is becoming more and more popular, not just among consumers but also in the professional world. So in the next few months we will bring it to England and Dubai, Hong Kong and Tokyo, Australia and California. And in the middle of the PizzaUp symposium in November, this year there will be the most explicit meeting of pizzeria and fine dining, to cover the themes that Expo has made universal.
The convergence of these two worlds ideally starts from the signing of the Manifesto della Pizza Italiana Contemporanea in 2012, which was consolidated with Identità di Pizza and then arrived to the inclusion of the 60 best pizzerias in Italy in the supplement to the 2016 edition of the Guida dei Ristoranti de L'Espresso. And given the recent success of a popular event in Naples dedicated to gourmet pizza and the birth of an association that starts from a group of pizza chefs from Campania led by Luigi Acciaio (see the news below), even there one can feel that the time has come to start working on novelties and build a new tradition for the future.
Yet what is the meaning of an original gourmet pizza? To explain this, we will open a laboratory with Università della Pizza at Host Milano from the 23rd till the 27th October (Pavilion 7, Stand M52) and then from 31st October we will broadcast La Farina e il Fuoco, a documentary on Italian pizza recorded in the ancient mill of the Quaglia family, directed by Silvia Chiodin and presented by Francesca Romana Barberini.
Piero Gabrieli |
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PizzaUp, 3 great chefs for 60 great pizza chefs  PizzaUp 2015, the traditional symposium on pizza scheduled from 2nd till 4th November, as usual in Vighizzolo d'Este (Padua), in the headquarters of organiser Molino Quaglia is warming up. 60 participants are expected, divided into 3 teams linked to as many speaker chefs, some real giants: Heinz Beck, Nicola Portinari and Piergiorgio Parini. This year, the themes will be nutrition (Beck), energy (Portinari) and earth (Parini). The most important novelty will be the practical sessions that the chefs will hold to introduce pizza chefs to techniques that can also be used in pizza making. There’s more: the professionals who will participate in the symposium will also be involved in a project that Università della Pizza – of which PizzaUp is an emanation – conducts with Università di Milano to build the first map of living mother yeasts used in Italian pizza.
On Tuesday 3rd November, professor Ambrogina Pagani (Food science and technologies) and microbiologist Laura Franzetti, both from the faculty of Agriculture at Università Statale di Milano, will collect and catalogue – with the technical support of Federica Racinelli – the samples of mother yeast given by the pizza chefs. These will be tested in the lab in the next few months and their microbiologic profile will be described: each yeast will thus have his passport and all together they will form a biodiversity map. The presentation of the results will be divulged with the names of the participating pizza chefs.
Each team will then participate in a practical session on new techniques to give pizza a better nutritional profile, reduce waste to a minimum and work on fresh ingredients preserving their qualities. Two journalists per day (Paolo Massobrio and Francesca Barberini on Monday, Paolo Marchi and Lisa Casali on Tuesday, Federico de Cesare Viola and Eleonora Cozzella on Wednesday) will be coupled with each chef and express their critical judgement and lead the dialogue with the audience. Works will be opened by Chiara Quaglia and Piero Gabrieli (Monday), Dario Bressanini (Tuesday) and Enzo Vizzari (Wednesday).
At the end of each day, one team in turn will serve a tasting of 4 pizza recipes made under the supervision and with the ingredients and techniques chosen by the chef. Grand finale with Corrado Assenza’s dessert made on the spot with the same ingredients.
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Identità at Harrods in London with Pepe and Padoan Great pizza, in fact “Gourmet Pizza”, for the now customary London event organised by Identità Golose. From Tuesday 27th till Saturday 31st October inside the Pizzeria at Harrods, on the second floor of the great British department store, two among the greatest and most innovative pizza chefs will hold the stage: Simone Padoan and Franco Pepe. Each will present three pizzas, an extraordinary demonstration of their art and the technique supporting it.
The pizza chef from Verona will prepare La Margherita secondo i Tigli with Petra flour («A simple dish… Tomato sauce cooked slowly with oil and a garlic cloves, adding a little basil at the end, is perfectly matched with the hazelnut flavour given by buffalo milk mozzarella warmed up on the side»), L’Orto (the vegetarian version with Grana Padano) and Dalla terra al mare («Red prawns meet vegetables. A pizza based on my culinary origins. When pairing prawns, I enjoy enhancing their buttery flavour with vegetables that recall the same aroma but have a crispier texture»).
Pepe, "armed" with Molino Quaglia Special flour, will reply with Margherita Sbagliata («I wanted to enhance tomato by baking it with mozzarella but only after the cooking, with a cold basil reduction»), Sfizio ai pomodori (the vegetarian version with Grana Padano, which uses tomatoes both as a variety and as a colour) and Il sole nel piatto («A tribute to the homonymous short film by Roberto Gambacorta on a few historic families of pizza makers from Campania, including my own. I summed up the excellences of Campania from the inland to the sea: piennolo tomatoes from Vesuvius, oregano from Matese, buffalo milk mozzarella, olives form Caiazzo, anchovies from Cetara).
Timetable: Tuesday-Friday, 12am-9pm, Saturday 11.30am-9pm, with the support of sponsors Consorzio Tutela Grana Padano, Acqua Panna-S.Pellegrino, Lavazza, Birra Moretti, Molino Quaglia. |
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Milan, we tried Taverna Gourmet «I wanted to try something new», explains Davide Iannaco, 42, a family in the business for 23 years now, when he opened La Taverna in via Anzani 3 in Milan, to which he later added L’Altra Taverna in via Cadore 8, 4 years aog. Iannaco recalls how he was in Sardinia, a long time before, at Laguna Chia. Over there, a pizza chef was making gourmet pizzas, with precious toppings. The place was half empty: was it too avantgarde? This discouraged Iannaco, but he liked the idea so he kept thinking about it.
Change of scene: two years ago. Pizza gourmet had become established, in the meantime, but not in Milan. So Iannaco decided to stop the delay and start working on a third restaurant, where he would unite the tradition of the first two with this new trend. Taverna Gourmet was born 25th July, with Vincenzo Masi working at the oven and Leonardo Giannico at the topping, the latter after 4 years at restaurant Bulgari (in the photo, left to right Giannico, Iannaco and Masi). «We worked a lot on the dough – they recall – We only use mother yeast, high quality flour, at least 48 hours of rising». They serve five versions: classic, with basil centrifuge juice, whole-wheat with Petra 3 and 9, with squid ink and sea weeds (for Pizza sashimi). We didn’t taste this but the others: Margherita Gourmet (delicious: piennolo tomatoes produced by Gennaro Esposito, then buffalo milk mozzarella, parmesan, green and red basil); Prawn and guacamole (red prawn from Mazara, avocado, red onion, chilli pepper, lemon from Amalfi and mozzarella); Langhe (rich: sausage from Bra, black truffle and toma cheese from Piedmont), Scampi, cheese and pepper (a nice mixture of elegance and strength: raw scampi, pecorino romano, pepper and lime zest); Pluma di maialino iberico (the most complex and delightful: pluma de Patanegra, burrata, parmesan and apple cream).
The second and the last, as well as the Sea bass and Colonnata lardo, are signed by Roberto Di Pinto, chef at Bulgari. An excellent experience – you can also taste more types, as in our case, thanks to the tasting menu for 30 euros. Pizzas cost between 14 and 35 euros: costly but not overly so, as they totally deserve it. Nice location, designed by architect Silvana Barbato.
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Patrick Ricci’s top secret project «It’s time to start again. From scratch, let’s start by archiving these 8 years of history. We’re starting with a new project. which is not a radical change but the continuing of a road already taken, because everything evolves and so do I. We’re at the end of Pomodoro&Basilico and at the start of a new phase. My new identity is being born, another story I hope will confirm the journey taken these past few years»: Patrick Ricci posted these words on Facebook on 22nd September. He’s perhaps the most unconventional pizza-chef, he reminds us of Paolo Lopriore and a little of Anthony Genovese too, and shares with the latter even part of his biography: born in France but from parents from Calabria and Ciociaria.
And he’s very little communicative – as people once said of the chef at Il Pagliaccio in Rome – just like his wife Patricia, in the dining room, from Lyon, is kind and lovely. We can grasp virtually nothing of this new project (in the photo, its new logo) by surly Ricci says they will renovate the dining room – opened in 2008 – but most of all they will serve pizza in a new way, as in a complete meal («I will break the disc. I take it as a whole and treat it ill, illuminate it»). Other details will come in the future, Patrick prefers to communicate with his baked creations, which are absolutely excellent, so we’re already happy with this.
We tried some splendid pizzas: the elegant Sockeye, born after an evening with Marcello Trentini and Filippo Novelli (burrata, wild Sockeye salmon, radishes, black truffle, parsley sauce); the rich Mangaliça “memories of a school snack” (San Marzano puré, fiordilatte cheese, vegetal mustard mayo, artisanal ham steak from Mangaliça, sliced gherkins); sumptuous Marinara dei Signori (San Marzano puré, Sanfilippo anchovies from Cantabria, freshly chopped garlic, oregano, extra virgin olive oil).
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Luigi Acciaio: fabulous discs in Croatia  How about eating a good pizza in Croatia, but also Dubai and Barcelona? This is the goal of Associazione Pizza Gourmet and its president Luigi Acciaio, who presented it in Opatija, Croatia, a few days ago on the occasion of the Mediterranean Cooking Congress. Even though the words “pizza gourmet” are today very popular and sometimes ill used, with the precious support of Molino Quaglia the Acciaio family (owners of GMA Import Specialità, which selects and distributes culinary excellences to create super pizzas, from flour varieties to seasonings, with the creation of a special “100% quality basket”) wanted to strengthen their leadership and guarantee the authorship with a registered trademark and the creation of an association with its name of which Luigi is the president.
The goal is to spread, and somewhat “certify” a particular kind of work on pizza and help pizza chefs across Italy and beyond to create what Acciaio defines «A more evolved and fabulous disc of dough». As indicated in the statute – under registration –this is founded on Petra 1 and 2 flour, long rising, dough immediately divided into small pieces and then left to rise at controlled temperature, bringing the balls then to room temperature 4-5 hours before baking) and a lower use of salt to guarantee digestibility, wellness and taste. Of course the same attention is given to the topping, including products such as Pregio extra virgin olive oil, San Marzano tomatoes or piennolo cherry tomatoes POD, capers from Salina or tuna from Cetara.
For those who want to join the “Gourmet” philosophy, the association offers consultancy and launching services through Luigi Acciaio, who decided to follow his grandfather’s footsteps and work on dough and flour as a teacher and pizza-consultant. «I try to convince owners of pizzerias to learn to knead themselves – he says – to be aware of what they are doing and have a full control of their product. And I can teach to use electric, gas or wood ovens, and different kinds of kneading machines, because for me a real pizza chefs must be able to work in every situation, always aiming for high quality». And in order to make high quality more and more available for everyone, there’s also the project of opening a large restaurant with a pizza school in Salerno, in the coming months.
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Benevento, Ernesto Varricchio’s passion There’s more than Naples if you want to eat excellent pizzas in Campania. This is proven not only by the success of Franco Pepe in Caiazzo, but also by the work of many colleagues of his in other provinces of the same region. In Benevento, for instance, there’s Ernesto Verricchio’s Oasi dell'Antica Quercia a nice countryside restaurant next to a large cork oak, close to the city, where the whole of the Varricchio family takes care of the hospitality (his children Mario, Luca and Laura, who also work in the laboratory) of the cakes (his wife Gina) and of the pizza, Ernesto himself. This business was almost born by chance: Varricchio, who used to be a carpenter, a sailor and a sports entrepreneur, wasn’t born in the business but became a chef out of his passion, a few years ago, deciding to work with commitment and research.
With no prejudgements, he studied in the North and learnt everything about ovens and flour – he even participated in Pizza Up in 2012, while Gina follows the “Morandin method” to manage the mother yeast – and in Naples to understand the secrets of Neapolitan pizzas. Putting his new discoveries and his manual skills to use, he built himself the oven he uses today for his pizzas. He defines his pizzas as “discs that can be reproduced infinitely”. The dough is based on whole-wheat four – such as Petra3 which he used for his Corbarina at the Bufala Fest last September in Naples – and durum wheat, with strong hydration (70%) and a long maturation (48/72 hours) so as to achieve digestibility, aroma and flavour. On top of that, he puts the best of Campania’s food production, crossing the border from time to time: fiordilatte from Agerola, tomatoes from Vesuvius, from Corbara from the Agro Nocerino-Sarnese, tuna and anchovies from Cetara but also pistachio cream from Bronte, capers from Salina and Irish Cashel Blue cheese.
His pizzas, however, are often a tribute to his territory and its traditions: from Mallone (in the photo, broccoli cream, mashed potatoes, fiordilatte from Agerola and cotechino, named after a dish from the farmers’ tradition in Benevento) to Ramata (fiordilatte from Agerola, pancetta and a real ragout with golden onions from Montoro and red beer, with a sweet flavour in pleasant contrast with the sapidity of the pancetta) passing through the delicious Pancia Magra (made with a creamy base of fiordilatte from Agerola and cheese with green pepper and lean pork belly of Nero Casertano).
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Gambero Rosso's guide: the emerging Morello  The 2016 edition of the "Pizzerie d’Italia del Gambero Rosso" guide is out with many confirmed results and some interesting novelties. The guide offers a rather detailed view, though not complete, of the state of the art of pizza in Italy, with 475 recommended places across the country, including all the different styles: from “Neapolitan” to “Italian” (which actually sounds like neither flesh nor fowl), passing through “tasting pizza”, which substitutes the “gourmet” one and indicates a kind of pizza served in slices with often elaborated ingredients. All the pizzas awarded share the same high quality and the «highest respect for products in every phase, from the choice of flour to the rising, to the selection of the ingredients, starting from tomato, oil and mozzarella».
There are different novelties in the 2016 edition, starting from the new “tasting pizza”. The number of “Tre Spicchi” [Three slices], increases and is assigned to the 41 best pizzerias in Italy regardless of the kind, whether it be round pizza or al piatto: there are 6 new entries - La Kambusa in Massarosa (Lucca), Pro Loco Dol in Rome, Gusto Divino in Saluzzo, Sud in Florence, La Braciera in Palermo and Palazzo Vialdo in Torre del Greco (Naples) – plus 8 places with “Tre Rotelle” [Three pizza cutters] to indicate the best “al taglio”, fried or take away pizzas. Overall, there’s been an increase in the number of remarkable establishments.
Among the special prizes, the one dedicated to I Maestri dell’impasto [The masters of dough] goes to Graziano Monogrammi of La Divina Pizza in Florence and Ciro Salvo 50 Kalò in Naples. The Pizzas of the Year are Moroseta (porcini, mora romagnola beef steak tartare, pecorino and egg mousse) by Q.bio in Forlì, Provocazione (dough made with semi-whole-wheat with smoked buffalo milk mozzarella, marinated red onion from Tropea, bitter almonds, Thun orange honey and wild fennel) of La Sorgente in Guardiagrele and Margherita Sbagliata (baked only with the mozzarella, the sauce, made with riccio tomatoes and a basil reduction is added only later) by Pepe in Grani in Caiazzo, presented by Franco Pepe at Identità di Pizza in Milan this winter.
The award for the best wine and beer list goes to pizzeria ‘O Scugnizzo in Arezzo and to Libero Arbitrio in Maiolati Spontini (Ancona), while the Emerging pizza chef title goes to young Alberto Morello (photo) who in Este, Padua, sources the vegetables for his delicious pizzas from his kitchen garden. Finally, one last novelty: the prize for the best gluten free pizzeria goes to Il Guappo in Moiano (Benevento) and its pizzas “good for all” by Marco Amoriello.
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Vesi: Pizza Gourmet meets chocolate  Two emblems of Neapolitan gastronomy –pizza and chocolate by Gay Odin, making chocolates, pralines and the famous “foresta”, delicious mini-logs made with milk chocolate flakes, since 1892 – meet thanks to Giuseppe Vesi and his continuous research of excellences and new ideas for pizza making. On 20th October the chocolate bon bon (a praline made with pizza dough, fried or baked in a wood oven with two different fillings: cocoa, milk and hazelnut "cremino" and "foresta") will be presented. These join the small but carefully selected range of desserts at Pizza Gourmet, a restaurant opened last January in the Vomero neighbourhood.
Vesi, who belongs to a historic family of pizza chefs with various restaurants in the historic centre, decided to move both in terms of location and philosophy from the heart of the Neapolitan tradition. In fact, he returned to its origins: «I wanted to return to ‘authentic’ pizza, the way it was made in the 18th century. At that time, they used non-refined flour so I decided to use stone-milled type 1 flour for my pizzas, made with Italian wheat from an integrated agriculture, with no additives or improvers. Even though today this kind of pizza is not included in the regulations for ‘pizza napoletana’, which require the use of 0 or 00 flour, for me this is the real pizza». In his restaurant, therefore, Vesi unites tradition with attention to raw materials, the environment and the service, all typical of the new model of ‘gourmet’ pizzeria which is becoming more popular in the last few years, without denying the history and validity of Neapolitan pizza, quite the contrary. In the menu you can find classic and original pizzas, with ‘creative’ seasonings made with the best Neapolitan and Italian products in general: from Marinara with red garlic from Nubia and oregano from Pantelleria, to the Pistacchio Gourmet with pistachios from Bronte and yellow cherry tomatoes from Vesuvius, up to the Jambon de Bosses with mozzarella di bufala campana POD, piennolo cherry tomatoes from Vesuvius POD, rocket salad, scales of Parmigiano Reggiano POD and a delicious ham from Valle d’Aosta.
And for vegans (or lactose intolerants) there’s also a pizza made with homemade soy mozzarella. The base is given by a dough – in fact two types, you can choose between the one with type 1 flour and the 100% whole-wheat one– which preserves all the flavour of the wheat thanks to the use of little salt and of high quality flour, and is extremely easy to digest thanks to the care taken during the rising and maturation in 2 steps: they start from a pre-dough with a poolish that rests for 18 hours and then there’s a second dough which matures for 24 more hours. Paired with the pizzas, there’s a selection of craft beers and a list of TripleA wines, which stands fro “Farmers, Artisans, Artists”.
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Pizza "5 e 5" by Antonio Polzella from Livorno In the photo, the "5 e 5" pizza created by Antonio Polzella, pizza chef and patron at pizzeria La Ventola in Vada, a hamlet of Rosignano Marittimo, Livorno (but he’s also the owner of Giotto Pizza, 959 West avenue, Miami Beach. You can find him there during the winter months). This is a new interpretation of the Livornese "5 e 5" classic (a typical sandwich stuffed with chickpea pie and sometimes enriched with aubergines preserved in oil. It is thus called because both the bread and the chickpea pie were once 5 cents each). This is «the Petra version – says Polzella – That is to say with Petra 1 and 9 on a shovel, Roman style, and the chickpea flour from Garfagnana stone milled and then stracciatella from the Val di Cecina dairy farm and of course peppercorns (and what pepper! It’s the Voatsiperifery wild variety growing only in the forests of Madagascar). As an alternative, for those who prefer a less aggressive taste, there’s fresh stracciatella with truffle instead of the pepper.
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