Battiloro: we were flooded with our clients’ love. Now a reassuring menu, soon some news too

Gennaro Battiloro went against the current of the river of the Covid-19 emergency. While most pizzaioli planned innovative delivery services to offer excellent products, he gave Battil'oro ("subtitle": Fire + Yeast + Spirits) in Querceta a break. A reasoned one. «Delivery would have made no sense, financially, because we wouldn’t be able to keep afloat. And it would have also changed the image of the restaurant, which is very neat, and this is very important to me. So I waited to get Battil'oro back to business at the right moment», the pizzaiolo from Torre del Greco with “home and job” in the heart of Versilia explains.

The right moment arrived on the 15th of June, three months after that crucial 8th of March when Italy closed everything. «And the rebirth was unexpected!», he says with the contagious enthusiasm of someone who knew what he was doing. His words flow: «Honestly, I wasn’t expecting the warmth we’ve received, I was very much afraid of masks and social distancing. Instead, people showered us with love». A love that was reciprocated by Gennaro Battiloro, best chef pizzaiolo for the Guida Identità Golose 2019, who decided to start – culinary speaking – exactly from where he had to stop.

He explained: «I opted for a reassuring choice. During the lockdown, through social networks, we received many messages. Many said that when we’d open they would order some particular pizza. It made no sense to present a new menu right away. The new menu is ready, and will be focused on the new type 1 mixes of multiple cereals from Petra, because at this time it’s important to lean on habit. This is why I once again presented the old menu, changing only some seasonal ingredient».

The habit, at Battil’oro, ispairing pizzas and cocktails, something very dear to the pizzaiolo from Campania who, though he doesn’t come from a family of pizzaioli, considers himself to be a “pupil” of Franco Pepe.

Among the most popular pizzas in the new setting, with the garden and the large and welcoming rooms in the restaurant in Versilia, there’s pizza Popeye, «baby spinach, sausage from cinta senese pigs, toasted hazelnuts and beetroot mayonnaise on a base of fiordilatte. The pizza base is the classic one at Battiloro, PetraViva with wheatgerm, sourdough and 36 hours of leavening». And there’s also vegan Rita with «cream of sweet and sour red onion plus, after the baking, chickpea hummus, raw curly endive, chips of puffed rice and wakame and extra virgin olive oil. In this case the dough is made with a mix of PetraViva and organic Maiorca type 2».

Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso