Enzo Coccia

Pizzeria La Notizia

via Caravaggio, 53/55
Napoli
T. +39.081.7142155
 

Enzo Coccia defines himself as a pizza craftsman – and it's important to him that you call him pizzajuolo, like in the old days – while in fact he is considered by many – both colleagues and clients – as the mâitre à penser of Neapolitan pizza. The only one, among 10 children, to follow the family history in the dining world – the trattoria Fortuna, in the historical centre of Naples – as a child, he grows passionate about the art of leaven, and when he starts to manage the family business, he decides to focus on pizza alone.

To do so he studies, documents himself, collects books and testimonies on the “real” Neapolitan pizza: he was one of the founders of the Associazione pizzaiuoli napoletani, the association of Neapolitan pizza chefs which has fought for the registration of the EU Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (Stg) at the Ministry of Agricultural Policies. He has participated, with the University of Naples Federico II, in the process of Uni quality certification of Neapolitan pizza and often participates as a teacher not only in training courses for pizza chefs – many foreign interns arrive in Naples to learn from him – but also in university courses and masters. In other words, he's become a real expert, not just in theory.

In the mid-Nineties he decides to open a restaurant that's all his own, La Notizia in via Caravaggio: a room, no more, in which a wood oven stands out, in a neighbourhood far from the tourist routes. Conceived to be mostly a take-away pizzeria, it is quickly seized by a numerous and patient clientele, ready to queue to taste his pizzas which range from the classic Neapolitan repertoire (the Mastunicola, a pre-tomato pizza with lard, Pecorino cheese and pepper was recovered thanks to him) to gourmet recipes which have, amongst their ingredients, the best of “made in Campania”.

Since 2010 his gourmet pizzas are served a few corners away, always on via Caravaggio, in a modern and slightly wider restaurant where you can also have craft beers and wines from Campania. Enzo is indeed interested in all that surrounds pizza without leaving any detail out – we've heard him discuss for an hour, with his colleagues, on the addition of extra virgin olive oil on pizza, before or after the baking – such as, naturally, the maniac precision of his dough, to begin with, and of the proportion of water, flour and yeast (a pinch of beer yeast, when the weather allows, while in summer he uses mother yeast). Plus a fifth essential ingredient: time.
 

Has participated in

Identità Milano


by

Luciana Squadrilli

a journalist born in Naples now living in Rome, she tries to make her three passions meet: eating, travelling and writing