Vincenzo Tiri

Tiri 1957

via Antonio Gramsci, 2/4
85011 - Acerenza (Pz)
+39 0971 749182

Being Vincenzo Tiri means making perhaps the best panettone in the world and hence the world (as for the solar system, we can’t promise). This is not just our opinion but that of the various shortlists that at Christmas compare the best national production and the different styles of panettone. He makes panettone in a small pastry-shop laboratory in a secluded village people ensure it really exists: Acerenza, in Basilicata.

Vincenzo, born in 1981, only makes a few dozens per day, one or two hundred maximum even though he has requests from all over Italy and the world (it appears it’s extremely popular in Japan), and he could well open more laboratories and flood the entire world but he prefers it this way. So he makes the panettone-version of Gronchi Rosa: he doesn’t sell it online, nor in shops, he accepts reservations early in December and that’s it. So those who want his panettone at Christmas (luckily he makes it all year round, even in summer when he recommends it with gelato) must queue in front of the shop, sometimes since dawn, as if for a Coldplay concert. The local tourism authority commissioned a statue in front of the cathedral as this determined pastry chef has put Acerenza on the map.

He wants to sell to people who are strongly motivated to taste a panettone made with 72 hours of leavening (and not the industrial 24) and three types of dough (and not the two Milanese classics), which makes it incredibly soft, and with a moderate use of raisins and candied fruit, strictly with local fruit like oranges from Tursi. In his little spare time he leaves Basilicata and travels to learn, speak about his art, seduce Gualtiero Marchesi, discuss with Iginio Massari, speak about mother yeast with Rolando Morandin. To name a few.

by

Andrea Cuomo

Roman, now living in Milan, sommelier, he's reporter of Il Giornale. He's been writing about taste for years