Passport-less pizza

The news had already been running on blogs and websites – especially those based in Campania – a few months ago when Christian Puglisi had been spotted visiting the best pizzerias and dairy factories in the region: the Italian-Danish chef who, after the experience at Noma, in 2010 opened his Relae in Copenhagen, followed a few years later by the more casual Manfred's, is in fact planning to open a pizzeria as well. Now that the opening day is approaching – it is expected to be in mid October 2014 – the news has also created interest in the international gastronomic press.

The project was born around two years ago and it is in fact the result of a long process of study and research. For the chef of Relae, however, – who was born in Messina of a Sicilian father and Danish mother, and moved to Copenhagen at the age of 7 – in fact pizza has always been part of the plan. «As an Italian who emigrated to Denmark, I always kept pizza in my heart – says Christian – my father used to work as a waiter in a restaurant-pizzeria and he often brought me along. I used to imagine myself managing the pizzeria, in the future. Things then went differently and I took another road – from a gastronomic point of view. After the experience at Noma I could have copied the style, but this was not what I wanted: instead, I decided to make a “passport-less cuisine”, neither Italian nor Nordic. It is also for this reason that I banned pasta from my restaurants: just like pizza, it would have defined myself too much. However, I now feel I am ready to take a sort of “return route” towards Italy, and get closer to pizza, even though with attention».

In this case too, the pizza will be country-less, neither in a Neapolitan style nor in an American one. Puglisi explains: «I want to offer, through pizza, what I did with my cuisine at Relae. It would be useless, and impossible, to offer a “true” Neapolitan pizza here. We want to make something authentic». In other words, the Italian DNA – of the pizza as well as of the chef – will be present, but intelligently mixed with local elements. So the organic flour will be made with Danish wheat (more tasty but less “strong”) and Italian (from Mulino Marino), the dough will have a non-excessive hydration, the ingredients will be local in order to always have fresh and genuine products.

The only concession made to Neapolitan tradition will be the wood oven created by Stefano Ferrara: «At first I didn’t want to be so tied to the image of Neapolitan pizza, but after many tests I must admit it was the best one» the chef says. And the fire will be one of the pillars in the restaurant, which will be called Bæst, that is to say “beast”, which anticipates already quite a lot about the difference with the previous restaurants, more oriented towards vegetal cuisine.

Here, besides pizza, there will be chargrilled meat (not just steak but also chicken, lamb and more) and cured meat, in a decisively more rustic and “masculine” setting. Even in this case, however, the raw materials will be entirely organic and, as far as possible, self-collected or even self-produced, from the cured meat to the mozzarella: on the floor above the pizzeria – also in the popular Nørrebro neighbourhood, but a little more central – there will also be a dairy factory where work will be done according to the tradition of Campania and with high quality cow milk from a Danish farm, while next door, a bakery will be created – connected through the workshop at the back – where pizza will be served in baking tins – Roman style (in fact the Italian tour also included Gabriele Bonci’s Pizzarium).

At Bæst, instead, pizza will be the classic, round one, served on the plate: 4 classic pizzas, 2 seasonal ones and 2 “from the market” which will change every day and cost around 100 crowns, 13 euros more or less. Of these, two (a classic one and a seasonal one) will also be included in the 7-course tasting menu and will be served in a random order, often with dishes that require to be eaten with one’s hands – as necessary for pizza too – and shared with the fellow guests. «I like the idea of including pizza in a journey, like other dishes, and that one can taste various types together with other recipes – the chefs concludes – the objective is to let people have a random, affordable and simple tasting».