Two tonnes of Naples
It arrived on a lorry and it is not going anywhere.
The oven is a Stefano Ferrara, built in Naples by hand, shipped in pieces and assembled in the back of the room over six days by two men who did not speak much English and did not need to.
It burns beech. It holds 480 degrees on the floor and about 900 in the dome. A pizza is in it for sixty seconds and is turned twice. That is the entire technology of this restaurant.
The rules we did not invent
Type 00 flour
One mill in Campania, one grade. We tried three others and went back.
Forty-eight hours
The dough is mixed two days ahead and proved cold. There is no shortcut that tastes the same.
Beech, not gas
Gas is easier, cleaner and holds temperature better. It also tastes of nothing.
San Marzano
Tinned, not fresh, and crushed by hand on the day. Fresh tomatoes make a wet pizza.
Fior di latte
Cow, not buffalo, except on the Bufala, where it goes on after the oven so it does not split.
Turned twice
Once at twenty seconds, once at forty. Miss one and one side burns.
Why there are only eleven
One oven does about ninety pizzas an hour with two people on it. Eleven is the number we can hold ingredients for without anything sitting in a fridge for three days.
