By Tracy Morin
“Roman pizza is a fantasy—a canvas to show off what you can do,” says Vitangelo Recchia, owner of Bella Napoli Pizzeria & Restaurant in Port Charlotte, Florida. “You can be creative, making different styles with the same dough. It’s very versatile.” Indeed, “Roman style” may describe a few options: Roman-style pan pizza, baked in a rectangular or square metal tray; pizza alla pala, formed in an oblong or oval shape and served up on a long wooden board; or pinsa, served on a smaller-size pala and made with different flours, like rice and soy.
If you’re used to making traditional round pies, such as the New York style, Recchia admits that Roman pizza might be a bit more challenging to tackle. But he believes the painstaking (and, traditionally, multiple-day) process gives the finished product an unforgettable flavor that’s worth the effort.
Roman Rules
Recchia, a U.S. Pizza Team member who studied the Roman pizza style under master pizzaiolo Massimiliano Saieva, nabbed second place with his Roman pizza (in the Pizza in Teglia category) in Parma, Italy’s World Pizza Championship in 2022. He prescribes a three-step baking process for this style, allowing the oven to progressively dehydrate the dough.
First, he cooks only the dough for 8 to 10 minutes, then bakes it another 4 to 5 minutes with the toppings, and finally finishes the slice in the oven (when ordered) for 1 to 1.5 minutes. “The final product you get is crispy, airy and flavorful, with an abundance of tastes and smells,” Recchia says. “When you work this style properly, it’s perfection from A to Z.”
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That signature flavor may end with the baking process, but it starts with the ingredients and fermentation. Recchia recommends using 0 or 00 Italian flour, fresh or dry yeast, sea salt and a quality extra-virgin olive oil. After mixing (see Recchia’s full recipe on page 47), the dough can be stored in the cooler for 24 to 48 hours, after which the dough balls are formed. Rechhia makes each ball 1.2 to 1.4 kilograms, then lets them rise for 30 to 45 minutes and places them back in the cooler (at 42° to 45°) overnight. The next day, he removes them from the cooler and leaves at room temperature for 45 to 60 minutes, after which they’re ready to stretch. He then stretches the dough into oiled pans and cooks his pizzas in 620° electric ovens—ideal for baking, he explains, because you can control the top and bottom heat. “Roman pizza is all about time and temperature,” Recchia says.
When making Roman pizza, he adds, toppings are applied to the edge, so there’s no raised crust like with a traditional round pizza. He makes his pies in 60-by-40-centimeter pans, which produce 12 slices, ideal for feeding groups of four or five. “It’s a street food,” Recchia says. “You can cut it in half or fold it like a New York slice, or you can put it on a tray and make it gourmet. It’s one of the most fun—and most difficult—pizzas to make. The fun part is the look on people’s faces, which is very rewarding. The difficulty is in learning the technique.”
“It’s one of the most fun—and most difficult—pizzas to make. The fun part is the look on people’s faces, which is very rewarding. The difficulty is in learning the technique.”
—Vitangelo Recchia, Bella Napoli Pizzeria & Restaurant
Can All Roads Lead to Rome?
While Roman-style pizza traditionally involves a high-hydration dough, a lengthy fermentation and high-quality Italian ingredients, Recchia believes in bringing the style to the modern day with new interpretations. Now a bestseller on his pizzeria’s menu, his second-place Pizza in Teglia entry was a white pie, which is called “Crostino Romano” in this style. Dubbed Heart of Parma, the pizza is topped with lardo, three types of mushroom (royal trumpet, oyster and maitake), porcini mushroom dust, local sausage, stracchino cheese, arugula and Parmigiano-Reggiano.
This year, he made a bigger splash at an Italian competition with a pie featuring a tomato base, cup-and-char pepperoni, stracciatella, Mike’s Hot Honey and basil—all atop a four-hour-fermented dough. “Italians would never do that, but Americans would,” he says with a laugh. “Italians may follow the rules of Roman pizza, but Americans are meant to break them. I like to give people an experience—and even if the Italians look at you like you’re crazy, they can’t stop eating it!”
Perhaps more importantly—at least for his bottom line back home—is that Recchia’s customers are similarly bowled over by the Roman style, even though he also offers Sicilian pan, New York round, Detroit, stuffed and grandma pan pies on his menu. “It’s hard to do only Roman style; I’ll spend more time explaining it than people spend enjoying it,” he says. “But when people try our Roman pizza, they say they’ve never had anything like it. And they come back here because we have different styles of pizza.”
Moreover, Recchia emphasizes that Roman-style pizza—already spread significantly in recent years—is currently “blowing up” in the United States. He predicts it will only grow further, thanks to a combination of improved education, more flour companies from Italy entering the U.S. market, and even manufacturers selling premade Roman pizza bases that operators can buy frozen and simply add toppings.
“People are learning new techniques to make the dough quicker, too,” Recchia adds. “Angelo Iezzi of the API [Associazione Pizzerie Italiane, or Italian Pizzerias Association] developed a system in the ’90s to make Roman pizza in 96 hours. Now you can do it in four hours, or 24 hours, as long as you know how to work with it. In today’s world, Americans don’t have time to wait three or four days for Roman pizza—they want it now.”
Tracy Morin is PMQ’s associate editor.
