Enzo Coccia, patron of the double pizzeria La Notizia in Naples and tireless testimonial of Neapolitan Pizza, hasarrived in China with as many as two brand new restaurants. The Neapolitan pizzajuolo was called in the Far East by Fissler, a German company that produces high quality tableware. The German brand, already available in Asia since 2005, called him specially, together with his pizzas, for their first two Fissler Academy Cafés which were opened in the past few weeks with lots of celebrations in Shanghai and Beijing.
The restaurants, as anticipated by their name, offer a new format that unites both the pleasure-loving aspect – totally based on Italian cuisine and its products – and training, through a series of cooking and tasting courses: aspiring cooks will be able to come here to learn the secrets of world renowned chefs, but housewives and children will also be able to get to know some symbols of gastronomic made in Italy, from wine to coffee, as well as all the shades of tea, and they will be able to learn how to decorate the table or acquire some notions of etiquette and nutrition. And, of course, taste the Italian dishes prepared by the professional students of the Academy.
A solemn moment: the ribbon cutting ceremony
The role of pizza will be essential, and so will be that of
Coccia, who since January visited the two Chinese towns a few times to test the feasibility of the projects and give indications on how to use the spaces that would hold the two pizzerias. After this, the equipment (including the ovens) and the ingredients – all from Campania – were sent, with quite a few duty issues, to create the pizzas in the menu:
margherita,
marinara – though in a Chinese version, with
squid and prawn -
vegetarian,
filled with sausage and friarielli peppers and more, for the joy of the Asian palates.
The long preparation process on location was conducted by two of
Enzo’s collaborators, namely
Davide Bruno and
Eduardo Ore, who, during the three months of their stay in China, had also the task of training a team of around 15 people who will be in charge of the dough and the oven. Once everything was completed,
Enzo flew back once again to China, in June, for the double, grand style opening, including Neapolitan songs, statues made with pots and dancers.
Una delle pizze speciali de La Notizia di Enzo Coccia: Pizza Baccalà in cassuola
The spectacular evenings didn’t draw the attention of local media away from the volcanic pizza chef – greeted as a star and interviewed by Chinese press and TV – and his pizzas. After the Chinese
tour de force,
Enzo returned to Naples ready to pull his summer pizzas out of the oven of
La Notizia, including his
Sorrento pizza (fresh anchovies, basil, chives and parsley, yellow tomatoes from Piennolo, fresh garlic, black olives, oil aromatised with oranges from Sorrento’s peninsula), and he also found the time to participate, together with other famous colleagues -
Attilio Bachetti,
Eleazzaro Bonafiglia,
Raimondo Cinque,
Franco Pepe,
Antonio Starita and his brother
Ciro Coccia – to the first edition of Premio Masseria delle Sorgenti Ferrarelle, on Monday July 14th inside Parco Sorgenti di Riardo, in which students and ex-students from
Università Suor Orsola Benincasa in Naples had to write an article that underlined the link between water, food and territory.
For
Coccia, however, the Asian adventure has not finished yet: there are other trips to China ahead, to check that everything goes following the true Neapolitan tradition.
