The revolution of Trecentogradi in Corigliano Calabro

He didn't like working in the office. Regardless of the many sacrifices taken in Rome to become an accountant, this turned out to be not really what he wanted for his future and he took off his accountant "uniform" as soon as his career begun. And indeed another road was awaiting him. A road in fact he had never abandoned, and had pursued over the weekends, at university, and when he was back in Calabria. Alessandro Plastina belongs to the world of pizza. That's where he was raised, and where he wanted to return.

He learnt the first rules of the business in his family's pizzeria, Mimosa, established by his father and uncle in 1986 in Corigliano Calabro. To this day it is an institution in the Alto Cosentino region. But it was his meeting with his mentor Renato Bosco at  Molino Quaglia's Università della Pizza that made Alessandro face his passion. A striking meeting. «That training was the real turning point. It changed my life and my way of approaching pizza-making», he says.

So in September 2019 Alessandro first opened Trecentogradi, on the main street of his hometown. He immediately focused on pizzas in a baking tin, which in honour of Bosco he called Nuvola di pane. The one with caramelised onion from Tropea, ‘nduja, yellow tomatoes soon became the most iconic. Thanks to this new idea he started his revolution with the goal of inspiring the local public, and sewing the seeds of a more aware consumption. He did so with Carmine Fontana, an old collaborator of Mimosa, who leads the oven and with whom Alessandro now works to run both places, and with Gregorio Caldeo. Trecentogradi is a project with a young spirit, based on a team of young people, but follows the format of the shop from the olden days, a place where knowledge and skills are honoured.

And the consumers are now responding. «On top of pizzas in the pan, they've come to appreciate the one in the baking tin, Roman-style. They start to understand what we're doing». The start-up was born only months before the pandemic but never stopped in this difficult year. «If not for a few weeks, we never closed. I love my work. It makes me happy to please people. It's the most important thing».

Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso