Closed 12 to 14 October. The oven is being relined.
The Story
One oven, lit in 2019, and a very short list of ingredients.
CENERE means ash. It is what is left when the fire has done its work, and it is the only thing in this room that is not for sale.
Who
One pizzaiolo, one bench, one recipe he refuses to write down.
He learned on Via dei Tribunali, in a room with no menu and a queue that did not move. He came back with one idea: fewer things, done properly, at a temperature most ovens cannot reach. The dough is mixed by his hands or not at all. The tomatoes come from one cooperative. The flour comes from one mill. When something is not right, it does not go out, and he will tell you why.
Where it comes from
Eight things we will not compromise on.
Every one of them has a place on the map and a reason. If a supplier changes, the entry changes.
San Marzano tomatoes
Agro Sarnese-Nocerino
Campania
Grown in volcanic soil between Vesuvius and the sea. Sweeter, lower in acid, thinner-skinned. DOP means it has to be.
Fior di latte
Agerola
Campania
Cow’s milk mozzarella from the Lattari mountains. Less water than bufala, so it does not flood the pizza.
Mozzarella di bufala
Piana del Sele
Campania
Buffalo milk, DOP. Added after the fire on the Cruda, because it cannot take the heat.
00 flour
Naples
Campania
Milled in the city. Fine enough to stretch, strong enough to hold a twenty-four hour ferment.
Extra virgin olive oil
Val di Mazara
Sicilia
Cold-pressed Nocellara. Peppery. It goes on after the oven, never before.
Guanciale
Norcia
Umbria
Cured pork cheek, aged three months. It renders in the sixty seconds it gets.
Bronte pistachio
Bronte
Sicilia
From the slopes of Etna. Crushed to order for the Mortazza.
Sea salt
Trapani
Sicilia
Harvested by hand from the salt pans. The only salt in the dough.
The Five Steps
Twenty-four hours, then sixty seconds.
01
Impasto
Flour, water, salt, a little yeast. Mixed by hand at eight in the morning for a room that opens at six. No oil, no sugar, no improver, because none of them make it better.
02
Lievitazione
Twenty-four hours in the cold. This is where flavour comes from, and it cannot be rushed. On humid days it runs long; on hot days we start later. The dough decides, not the clock.
03
Staglio
Two hundred and fifty grams, weighed by feel and checked on the scale only when someone new is on the bench. Opened with the knuckles from the centre out, so the rim keeps the air the ferment put there.
04
Il Forno
Onto the oven floor at four hundred and eighty-five degrees. Turned once with the peel. Sixty seconds, and it is done. The leopard spots on the rim are not a flaw; they are the whole point.
05
Al Tavolo
Cut, carried, eaten standing if you like. It does not improve while you wait, and we will tell you so.
Fire, flour, time.
Visit
Via dei Tribunali 12, 80138 Napoli
+39 081 000 0000