Dear {NOMEUTENTE}What a fine week, the one between October and November was. On top of the presentation of the 2016 guide and the grand finale at Expo, I was at Identità di Pizza in London and at PizzaUp in Vighizzolo d’Este, Padua, where Molino Quaglia founded the university of pizza. It’s easy to feel good in the British capital, while getting to a small spot in the Venetian planes is harder, you need a strong idea. Chiara Quaglia and Piero Gabrieli had it: having chefs and pizza chefs discuss.
Put it in this way, one would think the world is full of restaurants where a bit of everything is being served, restaurants-cum-pizzerias for every occasion. No, the matter is different. Once the barriers between chefs and pizza chefs have fallen, chefs are asked to think of pizza applying their cooking ideas. It is really surprising because Heinz Beck, Nicola Portinari and Piergiorgio Parini made no concessions to their colleagues. If one wants a contamination of cultures and an increase in the quality, the first thing you need to avoid is condescendence, the diminishing approach that often characterises those who are stronger, compared to the weaker.
What took place here was showing, explaining who to think, study, work in a kitchen of the highest standards, so that the 65 pizza chefs registered in the 2015 symposium would have the chance to discover new worlds, meditate on this, and understand what could concretely turn out to be useful for them. I would be worried if even only one of them didn’t treasure anything.
Paolo Marchi |
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NET: Nutrition, Energy and Earth  Working as a network means creating links between people who share the same way of thinking and seeing the future. In this case, the future of pizza, considered as the popular means of conveying a healthy diet that makes people live in good health while respecting food energy. Individual wellbeing and respect for our planet, to be in line with the lesson of Expo 2015. At the end of this ninth edition of PizzaUp I mentioned the work that has just began to give voice to its protagonists with an online tool of discussion not just between pizza professionals but also pizzeria clients.
Net is the project we announced during the 3 days of the symposium, in each one of which, one of the essential elements of the net was discussed: Nutrition, Energy and Territory. Three pillars in a model of thinking pizza and its preparation that finely describe the recent evolution of pizzeria towards a simple, genuine cuisine, connected with the tradition of the best ingredients in Italian gastronomy. Net must become a communication tool and a shared exchange of techniques and culture, which will help the general increase in the quality of Italian pizza and at the same time will make end consumers understand how to recognise a good product.
The first step in this project is already online: it’s a documentary in three parts titled "La Farina e il Fuoco" [Flour and fire]. Announced with a trailer in the past edition of Identità Golose Milano, it explains the quality of Italian pizza with the faces, gestures and words of the pizza chefs at Università della Pizza, shot live while they are kneading, rolling, topping and baking. The seed of Net is in those scenes, shot in order to speak both to pizza chefs and their clients, at the same time, with a common language based on quality, made of careful Nutrition, respect for the Energy of food and knowledge of a Territory’s products. To see the documentary, click here.
Piero Gabrieli
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Padoan and Pepe: pizza gourmet in London When you see that a family, father, mother and two kids, sit at the counter of the restaurant-pizzeria at Harrods and one of the children is happy to eat Chicken and wild-mushroom penne served in a creamy sauce while drinking a big glass of cold milk, you’re sure there’s still much to do so that Italian high quality cuisine will become established around the world.
We at Identità shared that same space on the last week of October, 5 days of Identità London focused on Simone Padoan and Franco Pepe’s gourmet pizza. There’s no need for James Bond to understand that what most tourists and English people like is seemingly Italian cuisine. Not that in the restaurants of many Italian art and tourism towns anything particular is being served. It’s just that over here there’s plenty of alternatives, while in the British capital there’s not. So Pepe’s Sole nel piatto or Padoan’s Dalla terra al mare (due to the presence of raw red prawns from Mazara) take the form of flying saucers.
It was the third event inside Harrods. The pizzeria doubled and one of the two areas, the Canti Bar to be precise, with its wood oven, hosted Identità di Pizza Gourmet. Pepe prepared Margherita sbagliata, Sole nel piatto and Tomatoes treat, a vegetarian version of Sole. Padoan, instead, Margherita Tigli-style, Dal mare alla terra and Giardino vegetariano.
All this was made possible thanks to Acqua Panna – S.Pellegrino, Birra Moretti, Chiara Quaglia and Piero Quaglia of Molino Quaglia – Farine Petra, Lavazza, Consorzio del Grana Padano, with prosecco Canti served in this space. A special thank you goes to Rebecca Boland and Giuseppe Silvestri of Harrods, as well as Domenico Della Salandra, our globetrotter chef.
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PizzaUp/1: a fertile allegiance “The yeast of knowledge”, was the title of one of the articles in which we wrote about the ninth edition of PizzaUp, which took place, as usual, in the headquarters of Molino Quaglia, in Vighizzolo d’Este. This can interpret an event that has Chiara Quaglia and Piero Gabrieli (in the photo) committed in distributing awareness to a growing team of pizza chefs who are an active part in what Enzo Vizzari, one of the guests in the event, called the “New Italian pizza”.
The event now goes beyond the initial boundaries, it has become a kernel of skills and experiments, a maieutic occasion for all that regards pizza. In fact, more: the horizon has widened, the borders broken. A proof of this statement is the fact that three fine dining giants were under the spotlight: Heinz Beck, Nicola Portinari and Piergiorgio Parini.
Side by side with the pizza chefs, they confirmed the semantic sliding of the word “pizza”: from a slightly rubbery round disc of dough, seasoned with tomato and more, to something different. The new Italian pizza, indeed: a revolution of which PizzaUp is the celebrative moment.
An appreciated change. Eleonora Cozzella: «Were you to work as a network, with this quality, given the volumes of pizzerias, much higher than fine dining restaurants, you could become the best ambassadors of the food heritage of our country». Gabrieli confirmed: «We chose this year’s themes in this order (that is to say: nutrition, energy, territory) because together they form the acronym “net”». Indeed: «The next edition will have an increasing presence of chefs. And as of tomorrow, we’ll put all of you in the net, so as to communicate techniques, products, results to you and outside the group. It will not be a self-centred circle, but will become a magnetic pole». Moving onwards and onwards.
Carlo Passera |
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PizzaUp/2: the meeting of Beck and Bosco The most vivid moment of the first day at PizzaUp 2015 was perhaps the verbal crossfire between Heinz Beck and Renato Bosco. A very significant episode, come to think about it, because it involved the celebrated chef who understands how cuisine cannot exclude new pizza and the nervy pizza-chef who understands how new pizza cannot avoid merging with the kitchen.
Yet it was not a conflict but a discussion. One would have thought the Bavarian chef (in the photo, with Corrado Assenza and some of the participants in the symposium) would speak of toppings in gourmet pizza: a chef’s topic, that is. Yet the German chef went beyond: «I thought not about what can end on top of the pizza, but inside the pizza».
He didn’t change the flour or the yeast, but focused «on the third element, water». Removing it completely from the dough in its “standard” version, and using first tomato water, then a rosemary distillate, or lyophilised herbs. This resulted in different, original, aromatic types of dough: «Each time, the physical behaviour of the dough changes, as well as the rising, the hydration, the topping».
It is this total diversity that did not fully convince Bosco: «If the goal is to aromatise the dough, why change its structure, with the consequent problems that were mentioned? Wouldn’t it be simpler to aromatise just the water in which it is cooked, as with the bagel pizza technique?». (That is to say boiling the leavened dough in aromatised water, before finishing the cooking in the oven).
This was an enlightening sparkle of technical yet almost anthropological dialectics: the famous chef who, as someone who sees pizza as something occasional, gives a high, complex take; opposite to someone who, without losing this complexity but also figuring out the difficult management of different types of dough, immediately imagines a more manageable technical solution for those who work with pizza in large volumes.
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PizzaUp/3: Portinari, good for the planet  Contemporary men are what they do not eat. The second day at PizzaUp, in Vighizzolo d’Este, was mostly founded on the overturning of Feuerbach’s classic paradigm. Contemporaneity is also based on food taboos, which in most cases are not indicated by canonical religions but by other dogmas: the dietician, the healthy, and so on.
«Men are what they do not eat», this was proclaimed by Dario Bressanini in his lesson covering fake myths in food. «There's too much psychological terrorism going on. An obsession for a particular food or ingredient is being nourished – one can say. One day “00” flour causes cancer, and it's not true at all; the next, it's red and cured meat, which is only partly true, it depends on the quantity». This is all rubbish. Culturally speaking, «one needs to eliminate the neo-pagan idea that what derives from man is harmful while what comes from nature is healthy». Hemlock is poisonous, gm food is not.
Man is what he doesn't eat (yet), then says Paolo Marchi: «Today we discuss at length about cooking with leftovers, but this is a concept that still only reaches a limited part of the population, because we've fought hunger for centuries and dreamt of abundance, which is in fact waste».
Yet, re-using leftovers is now accepted even in fine dining. This is demonstrated by Nicola Portinari (in the photo, during his lecture) who advises the pizza chefs participating in the symposium to use techniques such as vacuum and low temperature cooking that are not new though new technologies present them with clear advantages: they prolong food life and make it possible to use parts that were traditionally considered too hard, leathery or stodgy for their consumption to be pleasant.
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PizzaUp/4: Parini, unexplored territory  The unexplored territories of the “New Italian Pizza” were the focus of the third and final day at PizzaUp 2015.
Territories, we were saying, «yet this concept runs the risk of becoming a cliché», points out Federico de Cesare Viola. So it would be best to use the French term terroir, as it includes history, cultural heritage, knowledge. These are concepts Corrado Assenza, who followed the works with attention (preparing each night memorable desserts), holds dear: «We are cultural animals, there’s a strip of territory that is immaterial. It is called culture».
Therefore, we need to make an effort to study in depth, to go beyond Hercules’ Columns. Piergiorgio Parini always does so. His take on territory is unexpected: nothing static, a continuous «research, research, research», in the words of Eleonora Cozzella. The chef presents the ingredients he has thought about especially for the participating pizza chefs, as toppings for the leavened disc: «All these products come from my territory». That is to say: kiwi, persimmon, cypress cones, formaggio di fossa, chilli pepper and black cabbage. A double surprise: why «persimmon or cypress cones on pizza?!?». And even more so: where does Parini come from? Romagna: the second largest kiwi producer, that is to say.
Yet this fruit has Asian origins, same goes for persimmon; and the cypress used is from America, just like the chilli pepper; the formaggio di fossa is made with sheep milk, «yet sheep were only brought to my area by Sardinian shepherds after WWII». So what is this strange territory? The overlapping of many different seeds and influences. A fertile stratification. A shimmering identity. A root that dies without development.
We need a dynamic process, just like the world of pizza. Parini’s provocation: «A kiwi baked in a ventilated oven at 130°C for 30/40 minutes looks like a confit green tomato. It concentrates the acidity and the minerality, losing the liquid». So use it, he exhorts (the result will be a success: perhaps the best pizza at PizzaUp 2015 includes beetroot sauce, kiwi, buffalo milk mozzarella and chopped thyme, marjoram and basil. In the photo).
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Carmine Nasti and Tramonti’s tradition Not everyone knows that, on top of Naples, there’s another place in Campania where a different and even more ancient tradition than pizza was born. It’s Tramonti, a village in the province of Salerno composed of different hamlets inside the Monti Lattari Regional Park, overlooking the gulf of Amalfi. Here, since the Middle Ages, families of farmers used to prepare a panella with different cereals, seasoned with spices and lard.
This tradition continued over the centuries and even in the 20th century there was the habit of cooking some focaccias in the almost extinguished oven fire, after baking bread. They were made with whole-wheat (the one commonly used, milled at home) and seasoned with wild fennel. These are still the characteristics of Tramonti’s pizza, which since the Fifties has been spreading around the world, following the emigration routes of local families in search of fortune. Among these, there was also that of Carmine Nasti, owner of pizzeria Da Nasti in Bergamo – who in his sign still recalls Pizzeria Capri, opened by his father in Busto Arsizio in 1965 – and president of the renewed Corporation of Pizzaioli di Tramonti.
«Tramonti has always been a farmers’ village – says Nasti – people would make pizza with what they had at home: whole-wheat, wild fennel, pecorino, seasonal vegetables, anchovies or perhaps fiordilatte. It was like a large biscuit-bread cooked with a shovel in the oven at a temperature significantly lower than the one necessary for Neapolitan pizza, and they’d eat it all together to celebrate». Today Pizza di Tramonti is guaranteed by a De.Co and a special regulation that indicates its pillars, such as the use of whole-wheat flour, of ingredients that are typical of the Amalfi Coast, and the cooking at a temperature of around 250-320°C, instead of the over 400 of Neapolitan pizza.
Born already in 1990, the association – which includes most of the over 2000 Tramonti pizzerias around the world, even though some numbers are missing for now – found a new impulse thanks also to Nasti, who for over 10 years now has found that Molino Quaglia whole-wheat flours are an essential ingredient in order to continue the true tradition of Tramonti. «Pizza was once made like this, before the spreading of industrial flour. It is important for us to safeguard our tradition, and differentiate it from that of Naples. Not because it is less valid, but they are two different things and the story of the pizza from Tramonti is certainly more ancient».
Luciana Squadrilli |
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An Italian in Paris/1: Gennario Nasti Is bringing Italian pizza to Paris, the emblem-city of culinary chauvinism dominated by poor-quality frozen pizzas or others made with low quality ingredients – even by Italians themselves – a mission impossible? Not for everyone. For instance, Gennaro Nasti is accomplishing this with excellent results at Olivier Rebellato’s pizzeriaLa Famiglia, the latter being a young member of a family of French-Italian restaurateurs, not too far from the Louvre.
Born in Secondigliano (Naples) and raised with Neapolitan pizza, but with different experience opportunities around the world, as consultant and teacher, Nasti arrived in Paris last year with no knowledge of the city but knowing what he wanted to do with pizza. «This city is open-minded but they’re not used to good pizza – says Gennaro – However, quality wins in the end and even though there’s no tradition, when people taste a good product they can tell the difference. The problem is that in Italy we have many different pizzas, from North to South, and this creates confusion; people think all pizza is the same so they can’t easily tell good products from poor quality and sometimes they’ll let it cool for even one hour while they chat». In other words, says Gennaro, pizza is a battle but taste wins: «Today my best clients are French, they return often, they are curious to taste even more peculiar pizzas and often ask me about the products I use, so much so I sometimes offer them so they can taste them: fresh San Marzano tomatoes, crushed by hand, and then friarielli, torzelle, piennolo and corbarini tomatoes and much more. It’s a big satisfaction».
Once again, therefore, pizza proves to be an excellent ambassador for excellent food Made in Italy. In the menu at La Famiglia there are mostly traditional Neapolitan pizzas but upon prior booking, Nasti often experiments with enthusiasm with dough – adding pumpkin flour, burnt wheat, black chickpeas or using “100% semolina” – and toppings. For instance, try pizza Napoli and Parigi, with chargrilled San Marzano tomatoes, foie gras and mozzarella air. As for the dough, Gennaro presents a classic “Neapolitan” dough, with 70% hydration and an initial maturation followed by the dividing into balls which then rest for a long time too. On different occasions, beside the pizzeria, he has also presented pizzas made with Petra flour, participating in events such as Cultural, the Festival of food culture that took place in Paris last April.
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An Italian in Paris/2: Fabrizio Ferrara Fabrizio Ferrara is also bringing Italian pizza – in its different facets – to Paris. After closing Caffè dei Cioppi – the miniscule yet lovely restaurant he opened with his wife Federica Mancioppi – he opened Pizzeria dei Cioppi.
Born almost by chance, seizing the moment when they found out a friend of theirs was selling his pizzeria, the restaurant offers a sort of “journey across Italy” through different types of pizza: from those al taglio - in 3 versions – to the round ones– 10 different versions each day – seasoned with different regional products and specialties and some French products too, from Isole siciliane (pizza with San Marzano POD tomato, capers from Linosa, olives from Nocellara, anchovies from Mazara, wild mountain oregano, confit pink garlic from Lautrec), Calabria (San Marzano POD tomato, mozzarella fior di latte from Apulia, traditional ‘nduja and mozzarella di bufala campana added raw at the end) or Lombardia (pizza with no tomato, with mozzarella from Apulia, “Delica” pumpkin from Mantua, rolled pancetta and rosemary), plus focaccias, daily specials and lasagne, buffalo milk mozzarella, cheese, cured meat and desserts, paired with organic wines, soft drinks and crafts beer from Birra del Borgo.
The dough is made with 100% Italian flour and is matured for 48 hours, while the “cooked” seasonings are all homemade. «At last, the idea of pizza is finally arriving in France, or rather in Paris – explains Fabrizio – Clients are very careful about the kind of flour pizza chefs are using, the length of dough maturation, etc. They expect quality, are ready to pay for it. Just like at Caffé dei Cioppi, our offer aims mostly for neighbourhood business and family clients with a very good quality/price/daily offer ratio».
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Cristian Georgita, Italian pizza in Zaragoza Making the whole world discover the deliciousness of Italian pizza al taglio. This is Cristian Georgita’s obsession. He’s a young pizza chef born in Bistrita, Romania, who arrived in Italy still very young and fell in love with Rome and its pizza al taglio.
He used to work as a builder but he liked food and pizza so much he decided to study, on top of working as a past-time in the kitchen to learn with his eyes, passing from empiricism to the “science” of pizza. A pupil of Angelo Iezzi – the putative father of the new generation of Roman pizza chefs – and Federico del Moro, he worked in various restaurants before making up his mind to meet the “king” of Roman pizza: Gabriele Bonci. «I wanted to understand what was behind pizza, the reason why people would queue for hours. And I knew he was going to Australia for an event; I already had in mind to bring pizza abroad but I was looking for allies. I spent three hours waiting for him, but then it was love at first sight!».
Bonci gave him a job at the Panificio, took him around the world and Cristian – who in the meantime met other people in the Roman restaurant scene, Giancarlo Casa, Mauro Secondi, Edoardo Papa, Bonetta Dell'Oglio – was more and more convinced of the necessity of exporting the “pizza al taglio” format. «I wanted to gain experience abroad – he says – but most of all I couldn’t understand why no-one had worked hard to get this product known in the world, as in the case of Neapolitan pizza, for instance».
In the end, a few months ago, Cristian took the big step himself: he opened his 22.2° - «22 is for me a master number, I always come across it» - in Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon, in the popular neighbourhood of Delicia.
A nice challenge, convincing local inhabitants to taste his pizza al taglio, the result of the meeting of Iezzi’s technique and Bonci’s philosophy: only fresh and seasonal products, instead of the “can philosophy”. «It’s hard – says Cristian – There’s no tradition for pizza al taglio here, they’re used to eat only three or four types: cooked ham, champignons, 4 cheeses... They think pizza with potatoes is eccentric, and ask me to add pineapple or BBQ sauce». Yet he doesn’t give up and day after day he pulls out of the oven pizzas that unite Italian flavours with local products so as to conquer locals through their palate: pizza with chickpea hummus, lonza and peppers, onion and morcilla, courgettes, salad, cherry tomatoes and goat cheese seasoned in three ways, pastry pies with 4 cheeses and purple potatoes, calzoni with chorizo. Step by step, he’s making Spaniards understand the value of good dough, of extra virgin olive oil, of potatoes on pizza. With a few concessions: «If they ask me for pineapple, I add it. But not the BBQ sauce, I refuse to do so and send them somewhere else!».
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Proloco Farnesina: Lazio and the surroundings Third Roman location for the Proloco project, launched by Vincenzo Mancino and his partners at Proloco Dol in Centocelle – the headquarters and showroom of excellences from Lazio, meticulously researched and sometimes saved from oblivion. The latter is also a restaurant and, in the evening, an excellent pizzeria – later followed by Proloco Pinciano near Piazza Fiume, together with Gastone Perini.
The third opening, very recent, plants a flag in Via della Farnesina, not too far from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has a few novelties, starting from the presence, in the dining room, of Francesca Riganati, ex director at the Scuole del Gambero Rosso and a great connoisseuse of the Italian restaurant and culinary scene, who created a young, harmonious and capable kitchen team. Completing the team, together with the “foundations” given by Dol’s partners, there’s also Andrea Confalone, the owner of the palce where until recently there was a bistro with a rich wine-shop, from which the wines in the list – from Lazio and beyond – come from, together with draught beers from Roman brewery Atlas Cœlestis. Compared to the previous locations, Proloco Farnesina in fact waived the Di Origine Laziale [Originating in Lazio] line when it comes to wine and desserts – which are more modern and “creative” – handed to Federico Sartucci, taking care of the first courses (from cacio e pepe to tagliatelle with lamb meat sauce) and the daily specials based on the market offer.
Fabrizio Ferretti is instead the one who takes care of the dough for bread and pizza, as well as the main courses: the dough for the pizza in the baking tin – contrary to the restaurant in Pinciano, there’s no electric oven here, so the pizza follows the approach used in Centocelle – made with selected organic flour with a small percentage of spelt, with high hydration (80%) and a long leavening, resulting in soft and delicious pizzas. These are offered starting from a two-person format with a tasting journey, from the classic ones to those inspired by Lazio’s tradition or using regional excellent products as main characters, as in the irresistible Gricia (DOL guanciale, mozzarella, pecorino, pepper), Purgatorio (tomato, mozzarella, cream of Purgatorio beans, red onion, lard), the Incontentabile (tomato, mozzarella, artichokes preserved in oil, olives, hardboiled egg, ham from Bassiano) or Baccalà (mozzarella, baccalà, olives from Gaeta, fresh salad, parsley).
«Pizza is for us mostly the base to present and enhance the products we sell by the counter – says Francesca – which carefully selected among the best in Lazio’s production, always keeping in mind the criteria of the DOL project: attention to local products, sustainability, seasonality, organic products and respect for people and nature in general».
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