Taking Neapolitan pizzas to a whole new level
Print Edition
ENZO Coccia, a master Neapolitan pizza maker, whose pizzeria was the first to be recommended by the influential Michelin Guide in 2010, is a consultant for the first Fissler Cafe Academy in Shanghai.
Energetic, insistent, hard-working, humorous and with 40 years of experience of making Neapolitan pizzas, Coccia enjoys telling people how he become a legendary pizza maker.
“I cannot speak English, as I spent almost all of my time in the kitchen,” Coccia says in Italian. “I know all the terms of foods in English, but nothing else. I even don’t know how to change a car tire. The only thing I know is making pizza.”
Neapolitan pizza was first created in 1735 in Naples. The only toppings were mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce. That’s it. Coccia may be the first to realize the Neapolitan pizza, though created as a dish for the poor, could be elevated to a gourmet meal using high quality ingredients.
The pizza spread around the world in the early 20th century as Italian immigrants moved to other European countries, the US, Canada, Argentina, Brazil and elsewhere.
“It’s true Neapolitan pizza was initially for poor people as the ingredients are easily available, but it’s not a cheap food,” Coccia says. “Because of the delicious taste and cultural elements, the whole world has fallen in love with it.”
Both his father and grandfather were pizza makers and his mother also helped with the business. He says he got involved in the family business early and made his first pizza when he was seven years old. At 17 he was a professional and by the age of 18 Coccia was wearing a blue scarf, which in Italy indicates an individual is a master Neapolitan pizza maker.
In 1989, Coccia became a member of the Association of European Pizza Makers and Supporters, which at that time was celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Margherita pizza. He opened his own pizzeria, La Notizia, in 1994.
“The family decided my career and my life,” he says, “but to be a successful pizza maker, you need to be hardworking, passionate, creative and smart. It’s like your second skin.”
Coccia has four brothers, but only he has achieved high honors, won prizes and organized training courses for pizzaiolos (Italian for a person who makes pizzas in a pizzeria). He has also made pizza for celebrities and leaders of countries.
“All the honors and achievements are the result of hard work,” he says. “Keep working and keep contributing are the two suggestions that I stress with beginners.”
The master says the only way to become a good chef is to light the desire and passion within.
“You have to love it first, and then you can do it well,” he says. "It doesn’t work if you think fame, wealth and achievement at the beginning. My achievements come from the happiness I bring to others."
Technique, ingredients, hard work and passion are all key factors in making a great Neapolitan pizza.
Coccia says he uses less yeast to make soft, natural and delicious-tasting pizzas, which are never too heavy. His Neapolitan pizzas are only 2 millimeters thick in the center.
“I didn’t invent them,” Coccia says, "I just inherited the tradition from the 18th century.”
As a stickler for tradition, Coccia uses handmade pottery ovens to bake his pizzas. Regular ovens “can not make a tasty pizza,” he says.
“Losing tradition means losing history,” he adds.
Coccia has traveled around the world as the ambassador of Neapolitan pizza. In 2000, he was sent to Israel by the Municipal Council of Naples as the secretary of the Vera Pizza Association for the Middle East peace mission. He delighted both Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin.
“Traveling brings me so much. Enhancing my knowledge, learning about foods in other places. When people sit together sharing food, it will change you — make you grow up to be a real person, a real pizza maker.”
The newly opened Fissler Cafe Academy in Shanghai will feature authentic Neapolitan pizza and other Italian specialties like olive oils and seafood flown in daily from the Mediterranean.
Fissler, a German cookware manufacturer, has picked a team of 70 chefs from five-star hotels in Beijing and Shanghai to receive training for six months, including some training by Coccia.
The pizza maker says the restaurant business requires attention to details.
“Being critical and picky about every little thing is the key to a restaurant’s success,” says Coccia.
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