A third generation pizza maker and owner of the world’s only Michelin-rated Neopolitan pizza restaurant, celebrated Chef Enzo Coccia is known in his home country as a master among masters. Now, he’s bringing his expertise to the Middle Kingdom with hands-on classes at the new restaurant-school Fissler Academy Cafe.
Coccia has been around brick ovens for as long as he can remember, having helped his father around the family pizzeria as a child in his hometown of Naples. At age 18, he committed to making it his career.
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Although pizza might seem easy to make and ubiquitous in the eyes of many, Enzo says the simplicity of the food doesn’t make the results any less of a fine art. It’s all about perfect ingredients, attention to detail and passion.
“Food is the embodiment of a restaurant so I have to be extremely careful with all details, from the selecting of ingredients to details like watering the restaurant’s plants,” laughs Coccia. “I’m a dictator in my staff’s eyes.”
Not the face he’s showing us. The easygoing, cheerful guy is in town to teach his tricks of the trade to a group of eager new chefs, who will continue his work once Coccia sets off for his next destination. They’ve trained for 180 days and are now ready to continue his work.
His secret lies in his method of flour fermentation. During a special cooking class at the school, sponsored by high-end cookware company Fissler, Coccia explains how he allows his dough to naturally ferment for as long as 14 hours, which makes for a crust that is soft, light and flavorful.
While he is talking, the master chef grabs a hunk of dough and begins to flip and flap it effortlessly between his hands. In moments, the dough is a perfectly flat disk with a thickness of almost exactly two millimeters. He puts it in the wood-fire for a single minute, then out pops the mouth-watering result.
“I’m an admirer of traditions and I only make pizzas in a wood burning oven. Electric ones? Not my thing,” he says. Guess that explains why both of his restaurants, La Notizia and La PizzaAria in Naples, are always packed with diners.
The cheerful gentleman has also made friends with celebrities around the world. During our discussion, he tells us conspiratorially that it was he who persuaded Michelle Obama to start a vegetable farm in the backyard of the White House. For those not interested in cooking at all, there’s also a modern restaurant connected to the cooking school where diners can feast on the skills of his newly-minted students.
There’s an array of Italian offerings on the menu, but of course pizza is the main event, with toppings ranging from fresh seafood (shipped in daily from Dayangshan seaport in neighboring Zhejiang Province) on the savory Marinara (RMB128), to authentic salami (RMB118).
However, it is the basic Margherita (RMB88) that captures our heart. The extremely thin, mozzarella-covered pieces are especially fragrant with extra virgin olive oil dripped over top. It’s probably the best pizza we’ve ever had, and we tell Coccia so. “I do nothing but pizzas,” he shrugs and smiles.
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