Five reasons why pizza from Naples is the very best pizza in the world
You’re craving pizza. You can do two things. Either preheat the oven, open the freezer and bake a frozen pizza until crisp, or go to chef Dario Guerrassio, who teaches the chefs at the Hilton how to bake the very best pizza in the world – and how you can do the same at home.
The very best pizza? That’s pizza from Naples, of course. The pizza is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, just like the Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia, the city of Florence and the Great Wall of China. And Dario is the perfect person to tell you all about it, because he trained at the Alma International School of Italian Cuisine. Roll up your sleeves and let’s get started.
The dough: by hand or – very carefully – with a machine
If you’re craving pizza right now, you’re far too late, because the best dough rises for twelve hours. No, it can’t be done faster, Dario says sternly. He prefers to knead the dough by hand, using lukewarm water, fresh yeast, special organic flour from his homeland and a pinch of salt, with the quantities determined more or less by feel. In the Hilton kitchen, by the way, nobody has time to fuss with dough for hours, so they use a planetary mixer. It’s basically a huge stand mixer with a captain dough hook. Do you have one at home too? Keep it on a low speed, otherwise you’ll ruin the gluten, says the chef.
The crust: baked air is the essence
Do you only eat the inner part of the pizza and leave the crusts on the edge of your plate? Wrong, wrong, wrong. In that crust, seductively called cornicione by the pizza chef, you taste the “complex aromas and textures of the dough, the essence of the pizza” (he says it without laughing). He cuts into the crust to show us: look, air bubbles. That’s what it’s all about: baked air.
The oven: first, remodel the kitchen
Next step: install a new oven in your kitchen. This could be an electric pizza oven that reaches 450 degrees Celsius, or a wood-fired oven fuelled with wood from the southern slopes of Mount Vesuvius. Inside the oven is a pizza stone, made from rock from Campania, which is slightly porous so it can absorb some of the moisture from the pizza base.
The pizzaiolo: no smoke signals
A ball of dough is gently pushed out from the centre by the pizzaiolo – the official term for a pizza baker – until it becomes a beautiful round with a raised edge. Dario has first placed a little mound of semolina beneath the soft dough, so it doesn’t stick to the worktop, hands or pizza peel. The chef spreads a spoonful of tomato sauce over the pizza (special San Marzano tomatoes, naturally), adds a few pieces of mozzarella, some fresh basil, and then the pizza goes, whoosh, into the oven.
The base: a leopard print is good
The base should be paper-thin. With a beautiful leopard print on the underside, because that’s how you can tell the dough is cooked. In such a super oven, a pizza needs just sixty seconds. The chef looks pleased, drizzles a little more olive oil over it and then cuts the pizza into pieces with kitchen scissors (Ikea!). You eat pizza with your hands, he says, and grabs a slice by the cornicione. Does the tip flop down? Then you have a perfect Neapolitan pizza, he says. Does the tip remain firmly upright? A frown from his plucked eyebrows: ugh, no, that’s an American pizza.
Pizza with bubbles
Traditionally, Neapolitan pizza is eaten on the street, folded in half, with beer, cola or a light sparkling wine. The Neapolitan pizza at the Hilton Amsterdam can be served with real champagne, if you wish. A sublime combination of chic simplicity and elegance, which originated in contemporary New York. Until 14 November, the Half Moon Lounge at the Hilton is serving a special pizza and champagne menu (from €20 per person). That’s the classic pizza as Dario taught them to make it, but you can also go deliciously decadent: chef Franz Conde developed a pizza with salmon and caviar.
Image: BetePhotography
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