All about the pizza!

A great number of pizza professionals gathered at Porchester Hall in London on 11 October 2022 to take part in The Italian Show - Pizza Edition – where, needless to say, pizza took centre stage.

JOINT COLLABORATION

The Italian Show - Pizza Edition is a project of I Love Italian Food realised in collaboration with Federazione Italiana Cuochi UK Delegation and its president, Enzo Oliveri, thanks to the support of its main partners, Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli and the Pizza Pasta & Italian Food Association.

I Love Italian Food is an international network that promotes and defends the true Italian food and wine culture; a community that since 2015 has reached more than three billion digital contacts worldwide. With its network of professionals, it produces content for the narration of Italian food, organises international events to create dialogue with professionals and supports research and training initiatives to teach Italian products and cuisine to international professionals; I Love Italian Food having been created to promote authentic Italian food, with affection.

Other partners in the event included Le 5 Stagioni, Latteria Sorrentina, Molino Caputo and Sella & Mosca. Technical and media partners included White’s, GIMetal, Goldplast, Whitco, La Tua Pasta, Carnevale, Pizza, Pasta & Italian Food magazine and London One Radio.

The event, which had already taken place last May, was this time dedicated entirely to the story of the pizza supply chain, with many educational opportunities and presentations taking place throughout the day. It played host to over 900 visitors during the day, including chefs, pizza makers, restaurateurs, sommeliers, distributors, journalists, institutions and many other industry operator

In the rich schedule of presentations, the masterclasses held by Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli, together with master pizza makers Tiziano De Filippis, Graziano Bertuzzo, Davide D’Auria were very much appreciated by visitors, being dedicated to telling the story of the art of pizza and its secrets - from the contemporary Neapolitan pizza to the new trend of pizza al padellino, without forgetting the traditional pizza in pala alla romana.

On stage, there was great entertainment with the long-awaited show cooking of Davide Civitiello - ambassador for Mulino Caputo and head pizzaiolo of the Rossopomodoro chain – as well as the performance of Giorgio Riggio, world champion of artistic pizza, who surprised all guests with an acrobatic pizza performance that went viral on social networks.

Visitors were able to come into contact not only with producers of flour, extra virgin olive oil, mozzarella and all the ingredients that make up an authentic Italian pizza, but also with producers and distributors of wine - all strictly Italian - ice cream and coffee.

COMPETITIONS

The Italian Show - Pizza Edition also hosted two competitions, one dedicated, naturally, to pizza and one to pasta.

The Pizza, Pasta and Italian Food Association organised the thirty third edition of its well established PAPA Awards this year, with the Pizza Chef of the Year competition taking place right inside I Love Italian Foods’ show with three hours of competitions seeing numerous pizza makers compete before being awarded the best pizza makers in the UK, judged by an impressive jury composed of Theo Randall, Enzo Oliveri, Marco Fuso, Michael Eyre (Jestic), Mark Humphreys (Futura Foods), Kim Markwood (Danish Crown), Gary Somers (Whitworth), and, in the pasta competition, Carmelo Carnevale (president of the Italian Culinary Consortium and executive chef & director ChefMéd). Organised by the FIC UK, the Pasta Chef Competition also took place at the show, awarding the Best Pasta Chef in the UK title to Antonio Alderuccio (pictured, left, below, alongside Enzo Oliveri), executive chef of the Plant Based restaurant in London.

WATCH THIS SPACE

A successful edition, a further event is already being planned for the autumn of 2023…