Trends in pizzerias, pairing with bubbles and topping with the chef - Lifestyle

Coca Cola, beer, wine or... Bubbles? What is better to combine, beyond personal tastes, with the beloved pizza? The actor Alessandro Borghi and the other five partners, including the operatives Jessica and Cristiano Ciaralli and Riccardo Squillace, are convinced that the pizza and bubbles match is the fairest, to the point of titling a format, Pizza e Bolle, with three locations in Rome that present a really important bubble card, with more than 100 references from all over the world: champagne, Franciacorta, Trento DOC, refermented and other fine cuvées really exclusive for pizzerias, an unusual pairing for Italy but not abroad. Deepening the subject together with master sommeliers, it turns out - says Brando in the room of Pizza and Bolle San Martino in Ostiense - that in reality the popular pizza-beer combination is not really the most suitable, first of all in taste: for example the margherita - based on tomato, full of acidity - and lager beer - with a bitter scent - creates a union of acid and bitterness not at all balanced, In addition to the fact that yeasts are doubled, that of beer (produced from malt with the action of yeasts) and that of pizza, thus ingesting a large amount of carbohydrates and yeasts, often responsible for incorrect digestion. Pizza and wine would be already better, while the excellent because in addition to the variety of scents it is able to clean the palate from the fatness of the ingredients is precisely the pairing pizza and bubbles ". In the premises of Pizza & Bolle the card dedicated to bubbles has suggested labels next to each pizza on the menu. The success of the format was such that the first opening was joined in March 2023 by two others differentiated by the type of pizza: Sant'Isidoro in Prati with Neapolitan pizza, San Martino a Ostiense with Roman pizza and San Biagio with pizza in a walking pan, three different signs to please everyone.
For some years in Rome, which has always been the home of low pizza, 'Roman' precisely, depopulated the high Neapolitan but above all the contemporary, which is a tasty middle ground. Finding pizzerias that make with quality ingredients the Roman low and crunchy of tradition is not easy at all. To hold the flag high we think among others the Roman pizza maker Alessio Muscas, young talent 'Callegari school', who left the Sbanco altarpiece (award-winning and historic address in the Appio Latino area) to follow the new project in San Martino and challenge the trend of the Neapolitan. "Mine - Muscas tells us - is a contemporary Roman pizza because it is spread by hand (not with a rolling pin), so it has a slight alveolatura, an important structure compared to the traditional Roman fine pizza, and is therefore an artisan product with greater hydration (a classic Roman is about 55%). The edge is crunchy, the central part a little 'softer'. The Neapolitan pizza was my first love, but the Roman - as a Roman of Rome - I have it in my blood". From San Martino you can enjoy a gourmet Roman pizza with dough made with 65% hydration - using Molino Paolo Mariani 0 monocultivar flour - and a total leavening of 48 hours - then by hand and cooked in a Valoriani gas oven. And then there is the Neapolitan, the specialty of Sant'Isidoro with the oven kingdom of the Neapolitan pizza maker Giovanni Nesi, class of '89, and his Neapolitan team: 78% hydrated dough, with a lieMinimum aging of 36 hours, made with a mixture of 4 different noble flours from ancient grains. Also (mainly a 0 and an integral). "My pizza is a contemporary Neapolitan, with a tall cornice but not too soft and chewy".
Another rampant trend, in Rome and beyond, concerns the toppings now entrusted to chefs who work in contact with pizza makers elaborated and studied as a haute cuisine dish, calibrated to perfection, real gourmet exercises with pizza as a basic dish. In the menus real gastronomic experiences. Some examples? Mazara with Andria stracciatella, raw red shrimp from Mazara del Vallo dop, shrimp bisque, candied lemon zest, pepper, mint leaves; Carbonara with fior di latte dei Monti, pecorino romano, crispy bacon, salted zabaglione, black pepper, gricia in agro with fior di latte dei Monti, guanciale, pecorino romano dop, sweet and sour onion, the Italian Bbq an original pizza with smoky hints thanks to a base of smoked potato cream, grilled cube roll, dark onion, mayonnaise of marinated cherry tomatoes and rosemary oil and veal with tuna sauce proposed with mixed salad, veal roast-beef, tuna sauce, capers powder, caper flower: the Counter-Current with mixed salad, salmon, guacamole, crème fraiche and salmon roe and the surprise Tar Tar made with spinach, beef tartar, egg at 65 degrees and truffle. These are examples: the chef in the pizzeria is the novelty that is changing the sector giving new vitality to pizza.