On March 11 and 12, the national finals of the EmergenteChef and EmergentePizza awards, a format conceived and organized by Luigi Cremona and Lorenza Vitali’s Witaly, were held at ALMA, Italy’s leading school of higher education in hospitality.
The weekend kicked off on Saturday, which saw contestants try their hand at strictly hand kneading pizza dough with flours from Agugiaro & Figna, partners of the award since the first edition 12 years ago-a fine achievement!
The afternoon was devoted to the “fried” test, where the 7 pizzaioli finalists competed on a rice-based recipe and a free interpretation.
Sunday morning was the turn of the “pizza no waste” competition, where the creativity of each contestant emerged as they used the previously prepared dough disk to unleash their creativity.
Winning the award for Best EmergentePizza Chef edition 2023 was Pasquale Petrillo, of the pizzeria Il Fiore di latte in Verbania, with the pizza “Hortum” that featured: edible flowers, fava beans, snow peas, red onion in sour, zucchini cream, peasant arugula, asparagus julienne, Roccaverano robiola, Sorrento lemon citronette, date confit and green beans. A totally plant-based pizza.
In the fried “rice base” test, Pasquale Petrillo brought an “Arancino al Prunet e Bettelmatt” with Carnaroli rice, meat broth, shallots, Prunet, Bettelmatt, butter and thyme.
Instead in the “free fried” a “Montanara Ossolana” with pizza dough, mortadella from the Ossola Valley, fresh fava bean puree, and Seirass ricotta cheese.
The special mention awardwent to Umberto Costa, of Pizzeria Da Umberto in Lucca for the very successful (and daring) pizza in different variations of red turnip.
These are the other contestants in the competition:
Francesco Gabriele of Il Corso in Bolzano; Vincenzo La Porta of Le Fontanelle in Raffadali (AG); Giulio Piersanti of A Modo Mio in Lugnano in Teverina (TR); Raul Rotundo of I Fiori di Zucca in Rome; and Filippo Venturi of Me Pizzeria&Cocktailbar in Ferrara.
