04-07-2013
Mozzarella, burrata, nodini and sfoglie di mozzarella. This is Davide Ostuni and Fabio Fatelli’s core business. They are Puglia Cheese’s managers, a small dairy laboratory in Cape Town’s industrial area, info@pugliacheese.co.za and +27.(0)21.9005900. In just a few years they managed to collect lots of awards in South Africa
For once we’re not talking about restaurants but about an artisanal product, namely mozzarella. Two men from Apulia moved to Cape Town three and a half years ago and opened a dairy laboratory. In fact, a mozzarella and burrata laboratory. The have both worked in the restaurant scene: Davide, is a larger than life character who ran various restaurants in London while Fabio, who started off as a labour consultant, owned a restaurant in Brindisi for many years. Then came the desire to change, and it brought them here. Making mozzarella in South Africa is quite a challenge. These two resourceful “young” men in their fifties even imported a master cheese maker from Apulia, Cosimo, who was essential in the creation of these products. Not that there weren’t any firms, over here, producing Italian style cheese, including mozzarella, but the quality was much different. Therefore they filled a market niche for which South Africa had space. Things were not easy at first. Even though in this country there are huge pastures and thus one would think the situation would be similar to the Italian hill country, in fact the quality and the yield of milk are much different because of the different forage produced in this land.
Davide, Cosimo and Fabio (foto www.foodwithastory.co.za)
The food world in and near Cape Town told by Giovanna Sartor
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Born in Venice though she then lived in Milan, in January 2010 she moved to Cape Town. In love with South Africa, her dream is to produce Prosciutto San Daniele here, sooner or later