Pizza

Totò e Peppino

Any visit to Italy should include a pizza. What seems like a relatively simple dish of bread dough, sauce and a few toppings is actually much more complicated.

The key challenge is to be able to cook the dough while at the same time obtaining a crisp crust without burning the toppings.

Pizzeria Totò e Peppino is where you’ll find artisanal pizza prepared every day. Even the dough is particular. In Italy pizza dough is mostly made with beer yeast. This allows preparation to be completed a couple of hours before putting it in the oven. Mother’s yeast rises much more slowly and must be done two days in advance. What’s the difference? The faster rising beer yeast can cause stomach bloating which the mother’s yeast doesn’t. In Italy they say beer yeast is good for the chef, mother’s yeast is good for the customer.

Next we need a brick oven heated to over 500° F. The brick oven allows the heat to seep into the dough instead of searing it. That will yield the crisp crust, a cooked center and avoid burning the toppings.

Angelo looks forward to preparing his specialty pizzas for you.