Contrary to what proud Americans will tell you, pizza was not born in Chicago or New York; it was born in Naples, in the region of Campania. And while Wolfgang Puck thought to invigorate and “globalize” it in the 80’s by putting pineapple on it, pizza is still one of the most traditional Italian excellences, revered and respected.
But now tradition is being redefined in the Italian way. Today’s pizzaioli are elevating it to the heady heights of gourmet dining. One of those innovators is Da Concettina ai Tre Santi’s Ciro Oliva, 29, who commandeered his family’s delivery joint with dreams of grandeur when he was just 19. In recent years, Mr. Oliva and other high-flying restaurant owners in Naples and nearby have adopted the tasting menu, that haute-cuisine marker of five-star dining, and applied it to the most common and commonly adored food: pizza.
Concettina is located in the Sanità neighborhood of Naples, a rough-and-tumble district centered around a noisy and boisterous market street, that was named one of Time Out’s 51 coolest neighborhoods in the world this year, an upgrade in fortune due in decent part to this local pizzaiolo. Dignitaries and food fans flock to his outpost in this gritty yet evermore vibrant part of Naples.
“A margherita deserves the same respect as any other ‘Made in Italy’ artisan product,” Mr. Oliva said. “It’s like a Loro Piana jacket. But it’s pizza.”
Mr. Oliva has introduced long-leavened doughs and ingredients “all at level 10” he said, snapping his fingers for emphasis. “You have people who order a tasting menu and Champagne,” he said, pointing to a table with a rarefied bottle of Jacques Selosse Extra-Brut, “and people who order a margherita and a Coca-Cola,” which was the case with nearly all of the present guests. This is almost always true in Italy: the pizzerias offer this high-low balance: excess and accessibility.
Marino Niola, a cultural anthropologist in Naples, explains that “Pizza today has become a culinary excellence but, born as sustenance for the poor, it will always be tied to the concept of food for all.”
The tasting menu, though, is a nod to the Michelin guide, which has become the oracle of destination restaurants for food-obsessed travelers throughout the world.
Caiazzo, a tiny hilltop town of 5,000 to Naples’s north, is where you will find another great innovator of the elevated pizza experience at Pepe in Grani. “Pizza has always been considered fast food,” said Franco Pepe, known to all as Maestro. “But this is slow-food pizza.” Superb raw materials, high-craft cuisine, reconsidered recipes. The once-teenage assistant to his pizzaiolo father, Mr. Pepe took over the pizzeria with his brothers upon his father’s death, but he split from his siblings in 2012, rebuilding an 18th-century Caiazzo ruin as his own restaurant, with his apartment installed directly above it, where he could cultivate his exacting ideology of pizza. “We knew all about dough,” he said. “But we had a lot to learn about ingredients and recipes.”
An official ambassador of the Mediterranean diet, Mr. Pepe stressed the nutrition of his menu, but health food in an Italian context is very flexible. One of his best-sellers is deep-fried and carries a glorious blaze of flavors: a gently cured anchovy of nearly raw intensity, a sunshine-sweet tomato slice, a shimmering note of citrus zest underlined by peperoncino’s slight fire, a worthy example of Mr. Pepe’s doctrine: “Pizza enhanced by the culinary arts,” as he described it, while the young staff stretched fresh pies on the marble countertop in the kitchen. “Where tradition meets creativity and innovation.”
