The pizza-maker’s panino

He is a pizza-maker: a role that was undervalued for a long time and now is totally on the rise – at least in the gourmand version – and gives lots to speak about to the nice world of food. Too bad that Patrick Ricci is one of those people who do not like the stage: it is difficult to have him make a roaring statement, he prefers facts to words, or the oven. He’s a midfielder, paraphrasing Ligabue, a role from which he was driven away first by the acknowledged excellence of his work, and now even by an important, prestigious collaboration that is giving its first, craveable fruits.

Many hands make the panino light, one could say: so thanks to the meeting of a famous brand, namely Eataly, and Ricci’s increasingly appreciated gastronomic “signature”, a new leavened temptation is born. Two, in fact. The patron of pizzeria Pomodoro&Basilico in San Mauro Torinese (Torino), the temple of gourmet pizza, signs two new gourmet burgers that will enrich the already rich offer of delicious products at Eataly.

In particular, Ricci has decided to use the wood oven available in the various locations branded by Oscar Farinetti across the peninsula where at all times various types of breads are made, using organic stone-milled flour and natural mother yeast; he then chose the pairing himself – an art in which he is a renowned magician – and thus created Ortogiotto (dedicated to those who have chosen a vegetarian diet, it is filled with a seitan burger plus spinach, San Marzano tomatoes, peppers and cucumber, paired with stewed red onion) and Gorgogiotto (named after the use of gorgonzola, paired with stewed red onion and a burger made with 100% Piedmontese beef).

This offer recalls the pizzas created by the pizza-chef for his own Pomodoro&Basilico, with which he conquered the Tre Spicchi acknowledgement on Gambero Rosso’s Guida Pizzerie d’Italia 2013: one can recall his Saporita, for instance, a perfectly leavened disc seasoned with a puree of San Marzano tomatoes, fior di latte cheese, Tropea red onion, red sausage from Castelpoto, gorgonzola from Novara. That from Gambero was not the only acknowledgment received by the creative chef who, since two years ago, is also an “Artisan of Taste” according to Università di Scienze Gastronomiche in Pollenzo, where he teaches future pizza chef the passion and dedication for a truly unique and artisanal job.

The “rules” at his restaurant in San Mauro are simple: no blend or mix of flours, only natural stone-milled flour which he uses to prepare two types of dough, one with wheat and one with spelt. Then water, salt, mother or brewer’s yeast, depending on the dough, and a leavening process ranging from 24 hours minimum to 48 hours maximum. Finally, a sort of declaration of intent: «I follow my instinct and my curiosity in the search for disappeared products and their story, that of their use and of the artisans of taste that today still use them, cultivate them and process them. These are evermore rare people, witnesses who even today propose our sensorial history in the most faithful possible way ».