25-07-2014
Christian Puglisi, a Dane with Sicilian father and Norwegian mother, through his new restaurant in the Danish capital will embrace his Italian roots as he’s never done before, with pizza. Bæst will open in October and will also include a dairy factory for the production of mozzarella: with Danish milk but following the method traditionally used in Campania (photo credits Per-Anders Jörgensen)
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».
The room of the Relae, the first restaurant Puglisi opened in Nørrebro
Inside Manfred's, the Italian-Danish chef’s more intimate and casual restaurant
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a journalist born in Naples now living in Rome, she tries to make her three passions meet: eating, travelling and writing