From pizza to bread

Rome has always been famous for the pizza – wether the plain and soft one to be filled, the thin and crunchy or the tempting and varied “pizza al taglio” - more than for the bread.
But lately loaves and baguettes seem to have taken the lead into Roman's food scene. Following the long-established success of some bakers as the Roscioli brothers – that before launching their famous restaurant and delicatessen in via dei Giubbonari already run the family's ancient bakery – or Franco Palermo (acting as a ghost baker for many Roman venues), in November they just opened at least two new places where bread is one of the major features. We are talking about Romeo, the multiform joint venture between Cristina Bowerman e the Roscioli brothers, again, and the new Gabriele Bonci's bakery, opening today in via Trionfale, 36.

Bonci – whose baking master is Franco Palermo, that is also collaborating at this new project – is famous for his fantastic pizza al taglio. It's been almost ten years now that he's taking them out of the oven at Pizzarium, a tiny “pizzetteria” in via della Meloria, and they're so good that he was defined “the Michelangelo of pizza” by Vogue US. But it's been a while since Bonci was intrigued by bread&co, and you could tell it by the different collaborations he is holding with some Roman venues offering sandwiches and more. From today on, with the opening of its new bakery (that has already been working from some days to supply shops and restaurants), bread will officially be his new obsession.

It is a proper boulangerie, with light coloured wood furnishings and red bricks, a small yet well-stocked counter and a huge workroom. Here Gabriele and his staff will bake – from 7.30 am to 10 pm - over 60 different kinds of bread with organic flours (but you won't find rosette, the typical Roman bun, as Gabriele says «people like the “fake” ones, while I want to do a natural, real bread»), plain pizza to be filled with the best cheese and charcuterie, cookies and croissants. You can also ask for the house's burgers (at lunchtime) or for the roasts in pastry crust (for dinner) to take away, while every sunday morning you will find a staple or Roman tradition: the millefoglie (a small layered cake made of puff pastry filled with cream) filled to order.

In the new laboratory they will also be made all the doughs for Pizzarium. While flours and pizza-men will move to via Trionfale, chefs will enter in via della Meloria, turning the small shop's rear into a gastronomic lab where they will process vegetables, meats, cheese and other pizza toppings, every of them sourced directly from personally known breeders and farmers.

Yesterday Gabriele invited journalists and friends to have a taste of his new bakery. There was his famous pizza bianca and much more: the bread with mortadella (one of the most popular “poor food” in Rome), the small puff pastry pizzas, a fantastic pumpkin bread, a brown bread with a “just as it comes out of the bottle” home made tomato puree. We could also taste the biscuits and apple pies that the young pastry chef Valerio Coltellacci had just taken out of the oven and the liver paté on bread and the ribollita served in a big bread loaf. These are two recipes from Tuscany which were made by Elisia Menduni, food writer and a close friend to Gabriele. The twos are currently working at their second book, after the one about pizza. Of course, this will be dedicated to bread.