In Kelkheim, a town in the Taunus not far from Frankfurt, there is a venue whose name carries the dialect pronunciation of a land more than sixteen hundred kilometres away. Salentu is Salento as its own people say it, and it is at once the declaration of origin of an Italian family who emigrated to Germany and the thread that holds its entire offering together. Telling the story is Oliviero Zecca, who runs the venue today together with his brother Terenzio.
«It all began within the family. My brother Terenzio and I were practically born into the world of food: our parents had a gelateria-restaurant right where we are now, in Kelkheim. In 2021 the opportunity came up to open a small pizzeria right next door, and we decided to call it Salentu. It was October 2021». From the very beginning, the choice that would define the project's technical identity fell on Neapolis, the open-mouth electric oven by Moretti Forni. An invaluable tool, which «has become the heart of our kitchen, especially since the venue grew well beyond its first, modest size».
The choice of name, meanwhile, is not a flourish but a sense of belonging, filtered through two generations' distance. «We are Salentini, and that is why we chose the name
Salentu, because it is us. Even though we weren't born in Salento: our parents emigrated when they were twenty. Our family has lived in Germany for a very long time, and we were born there, but it is our Salento roots that led to this name».
Before pizza, in that family, there had been gelato. The original venue, San Marco, had been founded by their father, Antonio Zecca, following a path common to many Italians in Germany. «First they worked in the food trade, then they had the chance to open a gelateria, and little by little my father devoted himself more and more to cooking: alongside the gelato he also offered pasta dishes, first courses, main courses, antipasti. That is where this whole relationship with hospitality was born».
Salentu's starting idea, in 2021, was essential, almost monastic in its focus. «The place was small, sixteen seats, and we wanted to concentrate on pizza alone. We spent months developing our pizzas, a few antipasti and a couple of salads. No pasta, little choice of dessert: everything was focused on pizza, also with the idea of doing a lot of takeaway».
It was precisely the small size that triggered the turning point. The two venues, Salentu and San Marco, stood right next to each other, and their coexistence spoke of a family spirit rather than competition. «San Marco had already been there for twenty-five years, since we were born. My parents didn't offer pizza: one venue had gelato and pasta, the other pizza. Over time, though, we realised that Salentu was too small, and we had to turn many people away. We would tell customers to take a seat next door, at San Marco, and we'd bring the pizza to them there. But most of them replied that they wanted to sit with us: even though the product was identical, they preferred that new, modern setting, cared for down to the last detail».
The reorganisation of the two spaces came after a painful moment, which
Oliviero recounts without skirting around it. «In December 2022 my father died, suddenly. We came to a halt, we didn't know what to do, we weighed up various options. Then in 2023 we renovated the
San Marco premises and opened up the wall between the two: it all became one large
Salentu, with the gelateria incorporated». Two signs became one, and the choice made at the outset proved providential in exactly this change of scale. «Luckily we had chosen
Neapolis by
Moretti Forni: we needed a powerful oven, able to let even two or three pizza makers work at once, to turn out pizzas in rapid succession at the busiest moments».
It is on pizza that
Oliviero dwells most willingly, starting with the definition of his style, which he claims as a personal path between two schools. «We call ours contemporary pizza: a meeting between the crispness of the Roman and the softness of the Neapolitan. The cornicione is there, but it is neither tall nor rubbery; the pizza stays fairly thin, soft and crumbly, with a crispness spread throughout. For us the colouring on the rim matters: it is our signature». A result that depends on the ability, offered by
Neapolis by
Moretti Forni, to manage the timing of the bake with absolute precision: «The pizza cooks in seventy to ninety seconds. We stretch it on the marble counter, open it out again on the peel and slide it in, knowing that the bake will always be even and measured».
That fast, precise bake is exactly the point where the team's work meets the oven's technology. The choice of Neapolis by Moretti Forni, Oliviero recounts, was considered and tested in the field. «It was one of the best choices for the whole venue. We had other proposals, but after talking to various pizza makers and suppliers, and after going to see it at work in other pizzerias, this turned out to be the only possible choice. You can handle the pizzas however you like and they all come out perfect. The oven has never let us down: by now we know it well and we can get the very best out of it».
To the advantages in service are added those in managing consumption, an aspect that is anything but secondary for a venue that has meanwhile multiplied its covers. «You can adjust the top and the deck independently, and in this way you can run the oven in economy mode, as
Moretti Forni calls it, obtaining a pizza identical to the usual one. We use it at lunch, when the pace is more relaxed, and in this way we cut energy consumption; in the evening we go back to full power, around 430-440 degrees, and the oven never has any trouble holding the temperature». Consistency, more than power, is what
Oliviero values: an oven that keeps up with the rhythm of service without demanding compromises on what ends up on the plate.
The menu of the unified venue has grown well beyond the few offerings of its origins, while remaining anchored to a precise idea of southern cuisine that looks to the sea. «There are the classic pizzas, from the Margherita to the Capricciosa, which are our bestsellers, or the Parma with prosciutto di Parma and rocket. Then the pizze bianche, like the one with mortadella and burrata, which arrives every week from Puglia».
Alongside the classics, a group of more elaborate pizzas, often born from a nod to the seafood antipasti. «We have a pizza inspired by vitello tonnato, the
Vitellara, on a white base, with slices of veal cooked at low temperature, tuna cream and capers added fresh. One with diced fresh tuna, sashimi grade, caramelised onion, yellow datterino added at the end and black and white sesame: it comes from the tuna tartare we already had among the antipasti. Then there are six first courses and a few antipasti, like a mixed fry that is very much on theme,
Salentu by the sea, which is a great success. And also fresh salmon, fresh tuna, vitello tonnato, Puglian burrata».
The bond with Italy is not evocative but concrete, and runs through the raw materials. «Ninety per cent of the products we use come from Italy. Fresh goods reach us every week through a supplier: the burrata, or the fresh pasta, like the calamarata, which we use a lot. Fish and meat, on the other hand, we choose ourselves, every week, from a specialist wholesaler. The tomato is strictly Italian, the fior di latte comes from Naples, the burrata from Puglia, the prosciutto is Parma DOC, and there is San Daniele too».
As for the future, Oliviero is not chasing new openings, but the durability of what the family has built by joining two venues into one. «For now we are focusing on consolidating what we have created. In summer we reach more than a hundred seats, almost two hundred with the terraces: it is demanding, and seeing the venue full brings great satisfaction. But we want it to work just as it is, and the product to stay of high quality every day, because we keep a watchful eye on it. I know many places where the pizza has changed a great deal, in the Frankfurt area too: if the owner's attention is missing, it changes». It is that meticulous attention which, more than sixteen hundred kilometres from Salento, holds together a twenty-five-year-old gelateria, a contemporary pizzeria and the name of a land the Zecca family has never stopped calling home.
