By Vitangelo Recchia
Roman pizza is a tradition built on science and transmitted through people. In part 2 of this two-part series on the fast-growing style (click here to read part 1), I’ll look at the fermentation timeline framework, revisit my first World Pizza Championship competition in Parma, Italy, and consider the new Italian generation and what we’re building in America right now.
The Timeline Framework—Getting There Faster
Italian millers have been building flour functionality through sophisticated additives for decades. These include:
- Vitamin C for oxidative gluten strengthening
- Pasta acida for flavor complexity
- Pasta madre in dried form, carrying the microbial history of a mature sourdough culture
- Fermented wheat germ for enzymatic depth
- Lactic bacteria in powder form to build the characteristic tang of a properly developed Roman dough
- Diastatic malt—active amylase enzymes that feed yeast activity and develop crust color and flavor
- Non-diastatic malt for sweetness and color (without affecting fermentation)
These are precision tools, not short cuts. And they’re the future of serious Roman pizza production.
What I teach at Pizza University: The fermentation results you looked for in 72 to 96 hours can, in fact, be achieved in 6, 12, 24, 36 or 48 hours. The timeline is no longer fixed. The science is. The governing principle is non-negotiable: Less time means more yeast and less salt, while more time means less yeast and more salt. Salt slows fermentation. Yeast drives it. Every adjustment begins with understanding that relationship completely.
6 to 12 hours: Higher yeast, lower salt. Tipo 1 enters the blend to carry the minerality and depth that short fermentation on Tipo 00 alone cannot produce.
24 hours: Yeast amount comes down, salt begins to rise. Enzymatic activity starts building characteristic lightness in the crust. Time, yeast and salt begin working together.
36 hours: Yeast lower, salt higher. Cold fermentation is managed carefully to build depth without over-proofing. Fold techniques during bulk fermentation add structural integrity without additional mixing energy.
48 hours: Lowest yeast, highest salt in this framework. The cold is doing the real work—breakdown of complex starches and proteins and development of lactic and acetic acids that define a mature Roman dough. At 48 hours with the right flour, temperature management, calibrated yeast and salt, and Tipo 1 in the formula, you’ll produce a dough that a customer or judge cannot distinguish from a 72- or 96-hour product.
The pathway changes. The philosophy never does. Again, less time—more yeast, less salt. More time—less yeast, more salt. The clock tells you the time. The dough tells you the truth.
The Competition Floor—Parma, Italy 2023
Understanding the science is one thing. Executing it under international competition conditions is another matter entirely. To compete in teglia at the Campionato Mondiale della Pizza in 2023, featuring over 700 competitors from 52 countries, I managed frozen dough, thawing dough and refrigerated dough simultaneously across a 96-hour window. No margin for error. No ability to start over.
I traveled from Rome to Parma by train with 25 kilograms of dough and all competition equipment, managing temperatures in transit, tracking exactly where each piece was in its fermentation window. I changed trains in Bologna with everything made 18 hours prior, trusting the science completely.
I was a first-time international competitor on a platform in northern Italy, heading off to face the best pizzaioli in the world. I embraced every moment: the uncertainty, the weight, the countdown of the fermentation. When competition time came, I had reached the 96-hour window, and the dough performed. I finished on the podium in my first international competition, thanks entirely to understanding my flour, respecting my fermentation, and trusting the process.
The New Generation
Alessandro Scuderi started delivering pizzas at 18 years old, learned fermentation from the ground up, and built his own brand with a social media following in the millions. His pizzeria in Nizza Monferrato, Scuderi Prime, serves pizza in teglia, pala Romana, tegamino piemontese, and padellino, built on Tipo 1 flours and biga pre-ferments. He understands that the next frontier of Roman pizza is the education of the consumer, not just opening more restaurants.
Matteo Vari is Roman-born, a world champion as part of the Italian national pizza team and now a consultant for Molino Pizzuti. He stepped away from his 12-year pizza al taglio operation in Rome to open La Piazzetta on Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda, with 150 covers, serious craft and extraordinary ingredients. That kind of conviction in your product and process is exactly what the new generation needs to demonstrate.
Luca Pezzetta, born in 1989 in Marino, Castelli Romani, is the third generation of a family of pizzaioli and restaurateurs who trained at Gabriele Bonci’s Panificio and Pizzarium in Rome. He invented pizza in teglia served as small trancetti and introduced simultaneous shared pizza production across different doughs and five distinct natural yeast strains. His pizzeria, Futura, opened in Milan’s Isola neighborhood in November 2025, using flour from Molino Fagioli of Magione, Perugia. It was fully booked within days. Pezzetta was named Best Pizza Chef Under 35 at the Food & Wine Italia Awards 2024.
Scuderi, Vari and Pezzetta represent a generation that took the methodology Angelo Iezzi built, the science Corrado Di Marco and Enrico Famà established, and the global stage Gabriele Bonci created, and moved it forward with their own identity. They are not imitating the masters. They are honoring them by evolving what they built. That is the only way a tradition survives.
What We’re Building in America
Roman pizza is growing in the United States faster than most people in the industry are tracking. The pinsa Romana format has more than 5,000 dedicated pinserie operating globally. The al taglio format is moving from specialty food halls into mainstream menus. This is the moment.
As culinary coach for PMQ’s U.S. Pizza Team, my role is training the American pizzaioli who will stand on the competition floor in Parma and compete against the best in the world. That work begins with the same knowledge I teach in the classroom—the spec sheet, the flour, the fermentation, the oven, the process, the philosophy. Both demand complete understanding. Both reward the baker who has done the work.
Pizza University & Culinary Arts Center in Beltsville, Maryland was built by Francesco and Enzo Marra, two brothers from Naples who emigrated to the U.S. in 1995. Francesco came here as a professional chef who ran the kitchens of Washington D.C.’s most prominent Italian restaurants before Marra Forni was born in 2011. Enzo brought the engineering and manufacturing expertise that made Marra Forni what it is today. Together they recognized that great equipment without great education produces mediocre pizza. So they built the school. The classroom runs on Marra Forni electric ovens with depth and low ceilings—the same instruments serious Roman pizza production demands at every level. Students learn the real thing from day one.
When I went to Parma in 2023, beyond the competition result, I made a connection that changed everything. I met Ugo Veri, one of Angelo Iezzi’s trusted associates who was present in the kitchen where the modern Roman fermentation methodology was built. Ugo now teaches with me at Pizza University, covering all four Roman styles—al taglio, tonda Romana, pala and pinsa. So every student who walks through that door has a direct line from Angelo Iezzi.
What sets my teaching apart is breadth. In addition to all four Roman styles, I make New York, Detroit, Sicilian and Grandma styles, each one produced from a single master dough: one foundational dough adapted across five distinct pizza traditions. Not a collection of separate recipes. Dough itself as a living material that yields to a baker who truly knows what they are working with.
We are building the American link in a global chain that stretches back 2,000 years. It started in Trastevere in 2006. It continues in a classroom in Maryland today. The dough does not lie. And neither does the result.
In summary: Roman pizza is all about time and temperature. But time and temperature only work if you know your flour—where it came from, what it was built to do, and how it will behave when you push it. That knowledge does not come from a bag. It comes from study, from experience, from competing on the world stage and learning what it costs to be wrong, and from a teacher who has made every mistake so you do not have to make them all yourself.
Vitangelo Recchia is owner of Bella Napoli Pizzeria & Restaurant and a master pizzaiolo and instructor. He is an instructor at Pizza University and Culinary Arts Center and culinary coach for the U.S. Pizza Team. He has been ranked Top Pizzaiolo USA in Teglia at the World Pizza Championship three years in a row
