Pizza is constantly evolving from a popular food to a modern dish, the subject of study and refinement in methods and ingredients, in the intriguing and refined proposal. Pizzeria Chicco is an interesting example.
We met on these pages Stefano Canosci, owner of Pizzeria Chicco in Colle Val d’Elsa, only a year ago and, today, we find him more mature, more determined than ever, deeply committed to making, as he likes to define himself, Chicco a special, unique and inimitable place.
He has achieved his goal, an establishment of his own; he has been able to interpret his natural aptitude for hospitality and his entrepreneurial spirit by directing them toward a modern, identity-based pizzeria format; he does not stop and continues his growth armed with an open-mindedness that directs him toward stimulating goals in a constant challenge with himself.
Together is better Stefano Canosci built a cohesive team at Chicco’s, convinced that teamwork means mutual exchange and collaboration, it means respect. According to the same principle, he has made choices: processing methods, raw materials, ingredients, selected after meeting and experiencing the potential of manufacturing companies and suppliers, shared with them goals and ideals.
In order to create his line, now oriented on different channels-because pizza is vocation, it is creativity and not just technique-Stephen knows that he has to maintain a high standard and study recipes with a broader vision than the conventional, aiming to achieve goals inspired by important values: work ethics, environmental sustainability, healthiness, hedonic pleasure. Because everything that revolves around cooking is crucial, but a dish-and a pizza today is a dish for all intents and purposes-must above all be good, tasty, it must satisfy the palate and the senses as well as the soul and the conscience.
In this spirit, Stefano Canosci continues his collaboration with the Agugiaro&Figna mill and its 5 Seasons flours.
“To make a good pizza,” Stefano says, “the starting point is flour. I am so convinced of the quality of 5 Stagioni flours that I embraced the mill’s philosophy. I joined and became a testimonial of the movement Un Sacco di Cambiamento, an initiative that aims to stimulate attention to territories and places and promote through good practices and example the value of sustainability understood on a social, environmental, cultural and economic level.
I found the project interesting because what is enunciated in the manifesto meets my ideal of behavior. Embracing the philosophy of organic does not mean annulling ourselves in it but drawing on and modulating our actions consistently with our personal situation, trying to raise the awareness of the customer who, however, always has the last word. The term sustainability must also include economic sustainability.”
A contemporary menu, the future is escarpment
Continuous research is at the heart of Chicco’s dishes. Sustainability and wholesomeness a commitment. Stefano explains, “I have chosen to divide the menu into only two seasons and turn to different sources of supply: from the farmer to serious and reliable companies I look for the best, because I have made a commitment to my customers to whom I try to propose a correct diet in all senses: the best way to educate is not to impose but to offer ability to choose. Explaining what I bring to the table and why, is a must.” Thus were born, from different points of view and well-grounded ideals, Chicco’s new menus, starting with what has become an icon: the scarpetta. Scarpetta is pleasure beyond convention; it is memory. Who does not remember the enjoyment felt in dipping a piece of bread into the pot of sauce or scooping up the gravy left on the plate after a particularly tasty dish? It is childhood memory and it is a moment of absolute pleasure.
The first version is a tribute to Antonello Colonna, his mentor and inspiration. The focaccia with tripe was, in fact, his welcome entrée. Hence, original and innovative recipes were born: “It was the right time for a provocation,” he says, “pizza no longer as street food or even a gourmet dish (an overused term) so much in vogue. The time to give in to transgression, to make “scarpetta.” A deep dish twice as wide as normal, at the bottom a pan with a generous base of sauce inside covered by the pizza slices. On top of the wedges, the topping and other bits of sauce. Inevitably you eat it with your hands. Brilliant intuition and master’s touch. A declination that draws inspiration from traditional Italian recipes, then the turn to new “Italian-style” dips with strictly Italian and, above all, seasonal products. If a scarpetta is not enough… Then comes the brand new Salute & Benessere menu, designed in collaboration with companies that produce organic and high-quality raw materials.
It is a superior menu that follows an ethical ideal and makes the right compromise between culinary innovation and sustainability, between pleasure and practicality. A way to offer customers an alternative choice based on awareness as well as taste. Stefano Canosci, with his innovations in the kitchen, shouts a true hymn to freedom and continues on his path with new ideas, such as his pizza fritta, a popular Neapolitan pizzeria classic. Here he goes further. “I didn’t like the idea of the usual fried to appetizers to be eaten listlessly before the main pizza and, so, I make it as big as a regular pizza, serve it in a 33 cm wide dish, cut in 4 parts, with a hot topping on top: it becomes a single dish, it can be the welcome fry, but shared.”
Finally, at Chicco’s, came the “scrocchiarella,” it’s still pizza but the thin, fine, crispy kind that has its devoted audience but needed a bit of liveliness, to be cleared from being a low-end product. Stefano’s scrocchiarella owes its distinctiveness to the dough, which is balanced, and the topping, made with carefully selected ingredients. And last, an absolute novelty for Chicco: the pizza in pala, which, Stefano explains, “is served in a slightly different way than usual. It’s called the Crostini and is cut into squares and served in 4 pieces. On the crostini, not the usual slice of bread but a pizza base, and classic bruschetta sauces: livers, pheasant, etc., typical specialties that in this way are making a strong comeback.”
And the pizza revolution is served.
