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Ferran Adrià Looking to Break into Pizza Business; Italians Not Happy
CORRECTION: Adrià not opening a pizzeria. "Not anytime soon."
Uh oh. Ferran Adrià and his brother Alberto have announced plans to open a pizzeria in Barcelona, raising the hackles of some Italian pizza partisans.
But the world-renown chef and owner of El Bulli (the "best restaurant in the world" for four years running, is not going to deconstruct the dish using the high-tech "molecular gastronomy" techniques he's known for:
Ferran and his brother Alberto, the pastry chef at cutting-edge El Bulli, plan to open a straightforward pizzeria in Barcelona, apparently one that will be gimmick-free. They insist their goal is to create an honest interpretation of the Italian specialty, not to wheel out chemicals, liquid nitrogen and other experimental cooking methods to alter toppings, the sauce or dough.
No, what the Italians are up in arms about is simply the idea that someone not of Italian origin has the gall to try to open a great pizzeria.
While I truly do believe that anyone of any extraction can make great pizza, I think one of the pizzaioli quoted in the L.A. Times story has a point:
"The secret of the pizza is inside the blood," [world-champion pizza maker Vincenzo] Mansi said. "You don't wake up one morning and improvise yourself as a pizzaiolo. I've been doing this for over 18 years, and I still don't feel like I've mastered it. You need to know how to touch the dough. You need to know how to deal with the ingredients. You don't become pizzaiolo, you are born pizzaiolo."
Making great pizza is a matter of putting heart and soul into it and not making it just a sideline-hobby of your primary restaurant.
Though if Mansi is implying that one needs to be born in Italy to make a great pie, I've got quite a few U.S.-born pizza-makers here to show him a thing or two.
CORRECTION: Adrià not opening a pizzeria. "Not anytime soon."