Franco, the best pizza in the world

I don’t know Los Angeles Times’ Jonathan Gold personally. I do know that he was the first food critic to win the Pulitzer Prize. It happened seven years ago, in 2007. And this is enough for me to share one of his critiques. Gold has just written, in the issue Food&Wine currently in the newsstands, that the pizza made by Franco Pepe in Caiazzo (Caserta) is “Probably the Best Pizza in the World”.

I stood at attention because someone who wins the Academy Awards of American journalism counts much more than the CutesyPans blog that always appears in web press reviews, and should not be ignored. Jonathan happened to find himself in the city in the province of Salerno because last year a restaurateur and baker friend of his, Nancy Silverton, owner of Osteria and Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles (but also in Singapore), came back from her Italian summer holidays “raving about in a pizza…”.

A mouth-watered delirium caught the Californian restaurateur after her visit to Pepe in Grani, tel. +39.0823.862718, so much so she told Jonathan. It’s always risky, visiting a place that was presented as heavens on earth. The risk of being disappointed is behind the corner. The smallest thing could break the magic. Not forgetting that criticising a place everyone appreciates makes bigger news than being the nth person praising the same establishment. Not this time.

Besides, Silverton declares she never had a brilliant pizza in Naples, here the finishing words by Jonathan: “Her pizza is not traditional, yet is superb”. Then she says: “Had I not met Pepe, I would have probably never opened a pizzeria. People have been making pizzas for centuries, in Naples, by I felt as if Franco had invented pizza and then everyone began to copy him. Just like the cooks who embraced molecular cuisine after Ferran Adrià’s revolution at El Bulli. It’s difficult to explain, but it’s as if Pepe stands out in a special way”. True.

The man from Campania was among the protagonists of Le Strade della Mozzarella which took place this week in Paestum. Two moments were dedicated to him: a lecture in the morning, and a practical demonstration at lunchtime. He presented a new pizza and called it La Bufala Incavolata [The flipped out buffalo]. The Italian name plays on the use of the word cavolo, and goes beyond the presence of the latter among the ingredients, presented in two ways. There’s a cream of celeriac (cavolo rapa) which blends in the oven with the Mozzarella di bufala campana, and then both ingredients are added raw: crunchy sticks of celeriac and strips of mozzarella, plus wild rocket salad to balance the various notes and the fine touch of the extra virgin olive oil made from Caiazzo olives.

And then there’s Pepe complaint: “This pizza of mine is flipped out because of the tragic moment my territory is going through, tormented by a terrifying crisis that ends up damaging those who work well in the farms, those who are committed in doing things properly, those who do not want to surrender”.

The pizza itself does not know all this. In the shape, it recalls Memento, the vegan masterpiece made with chickpeas, onions and rocket salad, and then it’s its inventor, and us consumers, who add further meaning to it. While red pizzas are lively and inviting, white ones appear to be austere, you don’t feel your mouth watering just by watching them. And you need to look at them, think about them, almost woo them. They’re a beautiful woman full of character, with a beauty and a goodness that start from the head, first of all.