Da Vinci pizza masters successfully passed the Italian pizza masters qualification exam!
As 2016 draws to a close, it is time to take stock. Our goal for 2016 at Da Vinci was to make even better pizzas. We dreamed of our restaurants tasting just like Italian pizzerias and of Da Vinci’s restaurants becoming a favourite place for Estonian pizza gourmets.
We can now say that we are a big, big step closer to our goal. At the end of the summer this year, five of Da Vinci’s good pizza masters in Italy successfully passed their professional exams in pizza making! We are very proud of our masters and invite you to taste their newly qualified skills at Da Vinci restaurants!
We actually started our quest for the perfect pizza earlier this year, when we tapped the sleeve of our Italian supplier Molino Pasini, who supplies Da Vinci restaurants with pizza dough. We asked the local export manager if, in addition to good pizza juices, he happened to know of any good local pizza gurus who could train Da Vinci’s pizza masters to Italy’s gold standard. It turned out that Panini was actually working with Alessandro Negrini, a multiple Italian champion and the best (pizza) master in Europe and the world! An opportunity that could not be missed.
Thought foreseen. Negrini first came to Tallinn in February 2016. Once there, he gave the Da Vinci team an in-depth pizza training. Since every great pizza starts with a great dough, the master spent several days working with the Da Vinci pizza masters to perfect our pizza dough. We got the knack and found the right combination of ingredients for us. The master also gave us instructions on how to proceed and work with the dough.
There are more than one key to making a perfectly soft and crispy pizza dough. We’ve taken a close look and fine-tuned our pizza-making instructions. To get the best results, you need to follow the order in which the flour, water, yeast and other ingredients enter the dough machine, the rising time of the dough, how long it needs to be at room temperature before it reaches the oven, and so on.
After the training, the facilitator left us with instructions for the future and promised to come back in early June to conduct an additional week-long workshop. We practised hard in the spring. While we started with ball number 5 on the 10-ball scale of Italian pizzas (a good average) in the eyes of the master, by the June workshop the quality of our pizzas had already risen to ball number 8!
The grande finale of pizza studies took place at the end of August in Mantova, Italy. In the pizza classroom there, our five pizza masters passed a professional qualification exam, which consisted of making 5 different types of pizza. Since this autumn, our good pizza masters can now count themselves among the ranks of qualified Italian pizza masters.
We invite you to taste our new great pizzas at Da Vinci pasta & pizza restaurants in Tallinn, Tartu and Pärnu!
