Can you taste the love in this pizza party?
A pizza ingredient you don’t often hear about is love, but there was a double amount of it at the recent Pizza Party, a collaboration between A Mano, the popular local Italian resto, and Pizza Massilia from Bangkok. Both restaurants were included in the 50 Top Pizza Guide Awards 2022 (Asia Pacific). Pizza Massilia Bangkok ranked number 6, while the country’s very own A Mano placed 48th. 50 Top Pizza is the first guide of the best pizzerias in the world.
The awarding took place in Singapore last August and put the focus on Amado Fores (owner of A Mano), chefs Eric Marron and Chamuel Flores, and the rest of the A Mano culinary team. It was a big win and gave added prestige and honor to the well-loved dining outlet. Being relatively new and from the Philippines, Amado says, “It is great being included in the Top 50 Pizza Awards. The biggest blessing, though, is that we were cited as the Solania One to Watch, which shows we are the up-and-comer.”
The Pizza Party showcased a special menu at the newly opened A Mano branch located at BGC. The five-course menu for lunch and dinner was prepared by their master pizzaiolo. It was a pizza paradise sprinkled with love.
Amado Fores invited Luca Appino and Michele Fernando of Pizza Massilia to participate in this fun event in appreciation of pizza. This was their first visit to the Philippines, and it was during Typhoon Paeng. You can say that they stormed in, bringing much-needed sunshine on a rainy day.
Luca, the chef-owner, whose exuberance is infectious, said, “We are happy to be here with the A Mano group, with Amado and Margarita Fores. We have known each other for many years and decided to do this collaboration. The first reason why we are here is to share the knowledge of a good pizza with a high-quality dough using original Italian raw materials. In short, we are here to promote a good real Italian pizza. We are also working with A Mano to design a long fermentation recipe for their pizzas. We share ideas, not knowledge, because the A Mano team has already a high standard of knowledge. We work together as friends and think about new recipes.”
Margarita “Gaita” Fores, top chef and Italian food enthusiast, shares that “one of the main reasons why we wanted to collaborate with Pizza Massilia is to learn from them. They have been successful in Bangkok for a long time and the weather in Thailand is similar to ours. I learned to make pizza in Naples 15 years ago. My teacher was very good, but he didn’t know the conditions of a place like Manila. It’s great that Luca and Michele are helping not only A Mano but also Cibo to further improve our pizzas. The One to Watch recognition given to A Mano encouraged them to do better. So partnering with Pizza Massilia is a fantastic idea.”
I asked what the difference is between making pizza dough in Italy and in the Philippines or Bangkok, and chef Luca replied, “The dough is the most alive part of the pizza. When you make dough in Asia, you have to be aware of humidity, temperature, different kind of working environment, and a lot of other things. Even when you come from Italy, the recipe of a pizza changes from city to city, region to region. It also depends on the preference of the locals: some want a crispy dough, or a strong dough. There is also taste,” he notes. “So it really depends, and there are many factors. One has to adjust. Even your adobo will be different when it is cooked in other places. Same with pizza.”
As to the experience of working on this pizza collab, A Mano chefs Chamuel and Eric told me, “We learned a lot from this experience. It opened a bigger perspective of what we can do and cannot do.”
Chef Michele of Pizza Massilia echoes the sentiment: “I feel proud to be here and it is an honor to collaborate with A Mano. I am happy about the recognition of our work.”
Though Margarita is known as a top-tier chef and restaurateur, A Mano is totally all Amado’s. He only consults with his mom when he needs validation for certain dishes. Otherwise, he makes all the decisions and runs A Mano on his own. “I took Amado to Italy when he was seven but he didn’t remember much of it,” Gaita says. “Five years ago we returned to Italy, and when we came back to Manila, I think that was the time when he realized that he wanted to put up his own restaurant.”
That was the start of A Mano, and now here comes this recognition.
The pizza dream team created the Pizza Party collab menu featuring fritti (meaning deep-fried), pizza, calzone, pasta, and gelato. “The menu reflects not only the playfulness that comes with pizza, but also a new take on traditional Italian flavors.”
I was ready, and so was my appetite. For the fritti, there was Cotechino (a large Italian pork sausage) Nuggets with Lemon Maionese. “We decided to make the sausage nugget sized, which we feel will appeal to Filipinos,” said Amado.
Fiori de Zucca, Prosciutto de Parma and Fiori di Latte followed, which were fried zucchini flowers with mozzarella and prosciutto ham.
Two pizzas were served. The dough was light, and in their simplicity, they were both spectacular. The first was topped with Burrata and Culatello (a well-known salumi from Parma), which was soaked in red wine for 48 hours to moisten and deepen the flavor.
The second pizza was Anchovy Cantabrico and Origano. The anchovy was from Cantabria in Spain and is said to be the best in the world, while chef Michele brought the oregano all the way from Amalfi in Italy.
The piece de resistance to me was the Calzone Tartufo Nero. It is called the “queen” of the Pizza Massilia menu. I have to admit the presentation by Luca got me all excited. A steaming calzone was sliced open, which had Scamorza and mozzarella cheeses, and an egg yolk. Then a tray of huge truffles was revealed. He then personally shaved the truffles, adding generous amounts of it to the calzone. He then “sealed” it again.
Oh, and an additional ingredient, according to Luca, is “love.” Calzone with love, that’s what it was. Someone passed our table and told us he could smell the delicious truffles. I wanted to ask him back, “Can you smell the love?”
This was followed up by a pasta dish, Spaghettini ’Nduja. Again, it was delicious in its simplicity. ’Nduja is a spicy, spreadable sausage from Calabria, Italy. The menu ended gloriously with a soft Nutella gelato. Perfect.
There is so much that goes into the creation of a pizza: ingredients, environment, weather, preferences, tastes and, of course, love. These expert pizzaioli just showed us (and our palates) what a genuine Italian pizza really is and should be. And now we know the difference.
