(CNN) — It’s identified for its historic ruins, the seat of Catholicism and a few of the world’s finest pizza.
Sure, in Rome, the artwork of pizza is up there with the artwork of setting up buildings that may final for two,000 years, and guiding one of many world’s main religions.
In comparison with the unique Neapolitan type, Roman pizza is thinner, flakier and crunchier, because it’s baked for a bit of longer. The pizzerias of Trastevere, the boho neighborhood throughout the River Tiber from central Rome, are lauded as a few of the finest locations on the earth to strive the dish.
Now there’s one other form of Roman pizza, nevertheless — and it comes out of a merchandising machine.
Not for Mr. Go the weekly closures and afternoons off of standard pizzerias; his indefatigable steel “fingers” are spinning and stretching dough, slopping on toppings and firing all of it to a crisp 24/7.
The machine is the brainchild of entrepreneur Massimo Bucolo, a Sicilian residing in Rome.
“There was a gap out there — though Rome is a vital metropolis, there was nothing [foodwise] accessible by means of the evening,” says Bucolo. “We by no means needed to compete with a traditional pizzeria.”
Proprietor Massimo Bucolo skilled as a pizzaiolo earlier than opening the merchandising machine.
Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Photographs
In reality, Bucolo says it’s not even an actual pizza. He calls it a “cross between a pizza and a piadina” — the pizza-sized flatbreads from the Emilia-Romagna area.
That’s as a result of, he freely admits, true pizza — tossed by hand and seared in a wood-fired oven — doesn’t precisely lend itself to being cooked by a merchandising machine. Not least as a result of the bubble impact, because the dough ripples up within the warmth, dangers inflicting topping slippage.
A piadina base could be thicker and denser than a pizza base — so what precisely does it style like?
CNN Journey went to seek out out.
A ‘factor of disgrace’
Mr. Go is in a residential zone, between a hospital and a college space.
Julia Buckley/CNN
Mr. Go sits in a residential space of Rome, round quarter-hour’ drive from the Colosseum or Pantheon, or seven from Termini practice station. That is the world referred to as Piazza Bologna, close to each a hospital and a scholar space — so full of individuals pulling all-nighters (Bucolo says he scoured Rome for an appropriate place). It’s a really residential space — which is why my taxi driver is extraordinarily confused after I hop in on the Colosseum with a vacationer’s sunburn and ask to be taken right here.
However as quickly as I inform him what I’m going for — the latest sight to see in Rome’s 2,000 years of innovation — he is aware of precisely the place we’re heading. “I noticed it on TV!” he squeals. In reality, he’s so excited that when a member of the family telephones him, he hoots that he’s taking a foreigner to the pizza merchandising machine.
Not that Gianni is worked up in a great way. He’s firmly satisfied that this will probably be a “schifezza” — a factor of disgust, a horror, a factor of disgrace. He even excuses my conduct to his member of the family: “Oh no, she has to for work, come on,” I hear him say generously.
We arrive. Mr. Go sits simply off a busy crossroads, however that is no ugly merchandising machine: it sits in its personal little archway, with pop music blasting. (That is to create a full expertise, Bucolo says later — “For these three minutes, the place is yours.”)
Together with Gianni, a born and raised Roman who’s grimly fascinated by the concept of Mr. Go, I strategy the machine. It’s spotless — not solely is it often cleaned, says Bucolo, however each two or three days it’s fully dismantled, the inside is totally cleaned, and it’s sanitized for Covid-proofing. It’s additionally fantastically laid out, with Italian and English directions and notes, explaining the method and exhibiting us what to look out for.
There are 4 pizzas on sale: a traditional margherita, quattro formaggi (with 4 sorts of cheese), spicy salami and pancetta (a sort of bacon). Gianni bans me from ordering the meat, as a result of he’s frightened about refrigeration. Later, Bucolo will clarify how meticulously cooled all the things is backstage, however for now, we resolve to plump for a quattro formaggi, adventurous but not so vulnerable to meals poisoning. It’s the most costly, at €6 ($7). (A margherita is a mere snip at €4.50/$5.30.) The machine begins whirring.
A machine-tossed pizza
The machine has sufficient flour and water to make 100 pizzas at a time.
Antonio Masiello/Getty Photographs
First issues first: it actually does make the pizza from scratch. The place cheaper takeaway pizza joints throughout Italy usually hearth up the bases throughout quiet intervals and slap on the toppings when prospects come calling, Mr. Go spins collectively flour and water (it has sufficient to make 100 pizzas), presses it right into a disc, and delicately provides the toppings — all in entrance of your eyes.
First off, we watch the flour and water being spun into dough. Bucolo says that is an intricate course of — in actual fact, solely days earlier than our go to, he has personally adjusted the flour-water ratio within the machine, after buyer suggestions that the dough was too gentle. (Romans like their pizza brittle, versus Neapolitans, preferring it softer.)
After the dough has been produced, all seen by means of a peephole, it’s kneaded right into a flat disc, picked up and moved to the subsequent stage.
Then the tomato puree is flipped on high, adopted by the toppings. They’ve been chosen particularly to not trigger a large number, says Bucolo — therefore there’s no veg, which might flop round or fall off. As a substitute, the toppings for every pizza, together with the mozzarella, are premixed, prearranged and saved on plastic discs, that are stored within the ‘backstage’ fridge.
The pizza comes out on its preheated field.
Andrew Medichini/AP
Your chosen topping — our 4 cheeses, say — is then levered out on its disc and flipped onto the dough. That explains the curiously uniform blobs of salami and pancetta within the pictures of the pizzas on provide.
It’s then moved onto the ultimate stage — the ‘firing’ — the place it’s levered onto what seems like a cake stand and whirled round a bit of oven with glowing crimson filaments.
The ‘firing’ stage.
Antonio Masiello/Getty Photographs
The dough rises very barely (not sufficient to ship that topping over the sting) and the cheese begins to bubble.
Lastly it’s despatched (out of sight) down some form of chute, and seems on an enormous hand-shaped spatula, which lays it on its pre-warmed field.
The decision from a Roman
CNN Journey’s Quattro Formaggi pizza.
Julia Buckley/CNN
It’s neat, the method has appeared hygienic all through, and it’s surprisingly interesting to take a look at. However how does it style? Gianni is bursting for a slice. “Not an enormous one!” he insists, wanting askance on the pizza, and I don’t suppose it’s out of politeness.
He takes a chunk, and says the dough appears extra like a piadina. He doesn’t appear appalled, although — in actual fact, it seems like he’s attempting exhausting to not say it’s higher than anticipated. However, he says, the worth is steep. For that very same $7 (or much less), we might have gotten a “beautiful large woodfired margherita” in Trastevere. In a bar, he says, you’d pay half that for a snack.
He gulps down some water and wags a finger after I provide him extra. “I simply hope you digest it,” he says, darkly, as I end the remainder.
His last verdict? “I feel pizza must be made by pizzaioli.”
Rome is thought for its dough-spinning pizzaioli.
Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse/AP
The factor is, Bucolo is a pizzaiolo. Whereas planning the machine, he tells me he took a correct pizza-making course, and clocked up 40 hours expertise.
“This gained’t take off in Rome. Go to Trastevere, and also you’ll discover wood-fired pizza which can also be carried out in three minutes,” says Gianni.
However Bucolo insists that he’s not attempting to compete.
“It was an thought to create one thing that wasn’t there: pizza at evening. The merchandise can get higher, we are able to change them or change the machine, nevertheless it’s catering to a necessity.”
I can vouch for that want. Roaming Rome late at evening in July, following a Euros 2020 soccer sport, my mates and I had been determined to eat one thing — however there was nothing open. Had we identified about it, Mr. Go would have been heaven-sent.
However, says Bucolo, he’ll fortunately take criticism. “I gained’t hear criticism concerning the thought, however criticism [of the pizza] is prime. It makes us higher.” Identical to the criticism that made him alter the flour-water ratio (which additionally, he says, will change relying on the season and humidity).
In reality, after I inform him Gianni and I assumed it was a cross between a pizza and a piadina, he says, that’s precisely the purpose. “A pizza would soiled the insides of the machine — I labored all of it out,” he says.
The longer term for Mr. Go, says Bucolo, is shiny. For this machine, he makes use of solely high-quality, Italian-sourced components; for his subsequent trick, he’ll be promoting pre-cooked pizzas of that very same high quality. “Mr. Go will evolve,” he says.
However as for me? I don’t have the pizza palate of a Roman, and the piadina dough was a shock, however I’m not as unimpressed as Gianni. Plus, it’s a domestically run, enjoyable factor to do in Rome that makes a change from historic ruins. Certain, I’d sooner get a taxi to Trastevere than to Mr. Go, however subsequent time I’m in post-soccer want, I do know the place to go.
