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Pizza chef determined to cook up an authentic taste of Italy
By Xu Wenwen |
August 30, 2012, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ITALIAN pizza chef Francesco Losacco has been making pizza for 30 years and counts his job as one of his main passions.
The Naples native had never worked outside of Italy until last year, when he came to Hangzhou to manage the pizza kitchen of Ristorante Mulinaccio - the first branch in China of the Italian restaurant brand with a history stretching back 200 years.
The 49-year-old pizzaiolo continues his old skills in Hangzhou - kneading dough, making toppings and baking pizza, but insists he never gets bored.
"To me, making pizza is like painting. I create everything at every moment from the beginning to the end," says Losacco.
And he is delighted to be spreading pizza culture among Chinese people.
Source ingredients
"Some countries have made pizza a fast food, but I want to prove to my customers that pizza is a good meal in itself," he adds.
Ristorante Mulinaccio is situated at the crossing of Pinghai Road and Hubin International Boutique Street, a high-end commercial block in Hangzhou. It opened in the beginning of this year, six months after Losacco came to the city to survey the market and research where to source ingredients.
The first task he faced was where to find refined flours for making pizza bases. In Italy, there are specific flours for pizza, but no such a thing in the city, so Losacco spent two months trying out different kinds of local flours to find alternatives.
After trying more than 20 brands of flour in the local market, Losacco eventually came up with a blend of 60 percent of Italian flour and 40 percent of different kinds of Chinese flour. He says he had difficulties establishing the protein content of Chinese flour.
"If there's too much protein the pastry shrinks; and if there's too little the pastry is easily damaged during baking," he explains.
As a foreign cook in China, Losacco is keen to try Chinese food, visiting numerous popular restaurants and getting to know new types of veg on sale in markets.
"When I find a vegetable I do not recognize, I buy it and chew it on the spot," he say.
Among Losacco's preferred Chinese dishes are diced chicken with green pepper and Peking duck. But his favorite is tofu - especially soft tofu, which "tastes like buffalo mozzarella but is softer."
The chef has also created a salad combining a dressing of olive oil and soy sauce with tofu.
Having been in China for more than a year, Losacco has also noticed some difference of taste between Chinese and Italians.
Italians like slightly hard rice while Chinese prefer softer rice, he says.
Although he has tried many kinds of Chinese food, the chef has decided against attempting to localize his pizza and offer Chinese takes on the Italian classic.
Instead, Losacco insists on making authentic south Italian pizza, such as calzone, pizza bianca, smoked salmon pizza and pineapple pizza.
"People are more demanding about food, and cooks are creating more varieties, but I believe original is the best," says the chef.
"In Hangzhou I can find 95 percent of the ingredients for Italian food, so why not to offer Hangzhou people real Italian cuisine?"
Quick Q&A
Q: How do you feel about the city and the country?
A: The city is beautiful, its people are friendly and the culture is amazing. And I feel pleased as there are more and more foreign restaurants in China. However, the language is too difficult to learn.
Q: Do you cook for your family?
A: I'm sorry, but I seldom cook for my family due to my job. Recently, my wife asked me to make Chinese food for them. But there's only a few Chinese dishes I can do. Maybe I need to learn some recipes to please her!
Q: What things have you found interesting or impressive in China?
A: I see many Chinese people go to KTV for singing lots of songs and drinking lots of alcohol in a small dark room, which I have never seen in my country.
Q: What is a good pizza?
A: A good pizza uses live yeast, not starter culture, otherwise it tastes like manufactured, not handmade. Yeast is natural and makes the dough a bit sour and bitter. Also, a good pizza that uses yeast should have bubbles of different sizes. If the bubbles make a sound when you press them, it's a good pizza.
In addition, the crust of a good pizza should not be too hard, and I don't think a thin pizza without a thick crust is a real pizza.
The Naples native had never worked outside of Italy until last year, when he came to Hangzhou to manage the pizza kitchen of Ristorante Mulinaccio - the first branch in China of the Italian restaurant brand with a history stretching back 200 years.
The 49-year-old pizzaiolo continues his old skills in Hangzhou - kneading dough, making toppings and baking pizza, but insists he never gets bored.
"To me, making pizza is like painting. I create everything at every moment from the beginning to the end," says Losacco.
And he is delighted to be spreading pizza culture among Chinese people.
Source ingredients
"Some countries have made pizza a fast food, but I want to prove to my customers that pizza is a good meal in itself," he adds.
Ristorante Mulinaccio is situated at the crossing of Pinghai Road and Hubin International Boutique Street, a high-end commercial block in Hangzhou. It opened in the beginning of this year, six months after Losacco came to the city to survey the market and research where to source ingredients.
The first task he faced was where to find refined flours for making pizza bases. In Italy, there are specific flours for pizza, but no such a thing in the city, so Losacco spent two months trying out different kinds of local flours to find alternatives.
After trying more than 20 brands of flour in the local market, Losacco eventually came up with a blend of 60 percent of Italian flour and 40 percent of different kinds of Chinese flour. He says he had difficulties establishing the protein content of Chinese flour.
"If there's too much protein the pastry shrinks; and if there's too little the pastry is easily damaged during baking," he explains.
As a foreign cook in China, Losacco is keen to try Chinese food, visiting numerous popular restaurants and getting to know new types of veg on sale in markets.
"When I find a vegetable I do not recognize, I buy it and chew it on the spot," he say.
Among Losacco's preferred Chinese dishes are diced chicken with green pepper and Peking duck. But his favorite is tofu - especially soft tofu, which "tastes like buffalo mozzarella but is softer."
The chef has also created a salad combining a dressing of olive oil and soy sauce with tofu.
Having been in China for more than a year, Losacco has also noticed some difference of taste between Chinese and Italians.
Italians like slightly hard rice while Chinese prefer softer rice, he says.
Although he has tried many kinds of Chinese food, the chef has decided against attempting to localize his pizza and offer Chinese takes on the Italian classic.
Instead, Losacco insists on making authentic south Italian pizza, such as calzone, pizza bianca, smoked salmon pizza and pineapple pizza.
"People are more demanding about food, and cooks are creating more varieties, but I believe original is the best," says the chef.
"In Hangzhou I can find 95 percent of the ingredients for Italian food, so why not to offer Hangzhou people real Italian cuisine?"
Quick Q&A
Q: How do you feel about the city and the country?
A: The city is beautiful, its people are friendly and the culture is amazing. And I feel pleased as there are more and more foreign restaurants in China. However, the language is too difficult to learn.
Q: Do you cook for your family?
A: I'm sorry, but I seldom cook for my family due to my job. Recently, my wife asked me to make Chinese food for them. But there's only a few Chinese dishes I can do. Maybe I need to learn some recipes to please her!
Q: What things have you found interesting or impressive in China?
A: I see many Chinese people go to KTV for singing lots of songs and drinking lots of alcohol in a small dark room, which I have never seen in my country.
Q: What is a good pizza?
A: A good pizza uses live yeast, not starter culture, otherwise it tastes like manufactured, not handmade. Yeast is natural and makes the dough a bit sour and bitter. Also, a good pizza that uses yeast should have bubbles of different sizes. If the bubbles make a sound when you press them, it's a good pizza.
In addition, the crust of a good pizza should not be too hard, and I don't think a thin pizza without a thick crust is a real pizza.
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