Masters, new wave, talents, successful formats... Identità di Pizza returns, illustrating the evolution of this sector

We've reached ten. A nice, round number: this is the number of editions of Identità di Pizza, the special section dedicated to the most beloved food in the world, once again under the spotlight at the Identità Milano 2022 congress.

Let's not beat around the bush: it has been a decade of incredible growth for this sector, which was often neglected by fine dining congresses. Identità first broke the ice in 2012 – this would have been the 11th edition already, hadn't it been for the stop in 2020, due to Covid and the lockdowns – when Identità di Pizza was born, with Simone Padoan, Beniamino Bilali, Franco Pepe, Giuseppe Giordano, Massimo Gatti, Roberto Pongolini, Corrado Assenza, Enzo Coccia and English Jon Pollard on stage. But already the previous year four pizzaioli - including Padoan, the real north pole of the revolution that was about to take place – had gotten on stage at MiCo, showing a precocious new dignity given by Identità to the world of leavened products, which was enjoying at that moment a decisive evolution that would then guide its impetuous growth in the past few years.

Enough chatting: this is the tenth edition of the section dedicated to the most tasty leavened disc in the world, taking place in Sala Blu 2 on Friday 22nd of April, for the entire day, after 11. The format is the usual successful one: not a celebration of the present, but an injection of ideas and stimuli for the future, in an explosive and fertile mix of innovative pizzaioli, different schools (of thought, of techniques), but all sharing the same precise goal. Guiding pizza into modernity, enhancing it by tracing a precise profile. Summing up, thinking about the new horizons for contemporary pizza.

Continuity and opportunities. The next edition of Identità di Pizza will have plenty of new people. Of course, there will also be as usual master Franco Pepe. After all, how could we do without the thoughts, words, ideas of a real point of reference in the field, with his Pepe in Grani in Caiazzo (his talk will be the last of the day, at 5,30 pm for a grand finale). And there will also be another return, after the edition of 2021, of a representative of the new wave of contemporary pizza, Pier Daniele Seu, patron and chef at Seu Pizza Illuminati: born in 1987, he stood out over the years thanks to his concept of modern pizza with a strong identity.

Apart from them, all new faces, except a return after a long time. Works will begin at 11 with a new very interesting pair: Gianni Di Lella, of pizzeria La Bufala in Maranello (Modena), and Richard Abou Zaki, chef at Retroscena in Porto San Giorgio (Fermo). Identità serves also (or most of all?) to create a synthesis, and their lesson is not-to-be-missed.

After them, a debut, at noon: Alessandro Ratta of Officine Birrai in Lecce; followed by a return. We had met Angelo Rumolo (of Le Grotticelle in Caggiano, Salerno), very young and passionate, in 2014, when he presented his pizza at Identità Milano together with chef Vitantonio Lombardo. Eight years later, we'll watch how his technique has evolved (at 1 pm).

After the usual lunchbreak, talks will continue with the above-mentioned Seu, at 3,30 pm. Then at 4,30, we'll focus on Big Mamma: a very successful pizza format from France, "two French and 750 Italians of 24-years of age on average", with restaurants in Paris, Lille, Lyne, Bordeaux, Marseille but also London and Madrid. Founders Victor Lugger, and two of his master pizzaioli Alberto Suardi and Andrea De Michele will talk about it.

Grand finale, at 5,30 pm, with Pepe. But that you already know.

 

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Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso

 

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