Back to Fiamma

I've been pleased, though hardly surprised, to see that Fiamma continues to do well. For a long time, Rochester's and Monroe County's east side has held a lopsided advantage over the west side where wood-fired pizza is concerned, but Fiamma's opening in Gates has dramatically shifted the center of gravity for lovers of the style.
I gave Fiamma a rave review last October, and only the need to check other pizzerias off my list kept me from going back sooner, but I did make a return visit recently. This allowed me to stray from my usual diet of Margherita pizza, and check out some of Fiamma's other varieties.
In fact, I didn't even choose what kind of pizza to get from among Fiamma's wide array of traditional and specialty pizzas. Instead, I left it up to pizzaiolo Giuseppe Paciullo. He recommended the Positano, a "specialita" pizza that's topped with butternut squash puree, smoked mozzarella, basil, and spicy pancetta. Probably not something I'd be inclined to order, but I trusted him to steer me in the right direction.
My trust was amply rewarded, with one of the best pies I've had. Giuseppe told me that not many people order the Positano, probably because the toppings sound a little weird to the average customer. That's understandable, but it's also a shame. They don't know what they're missing. This pizza had a wonderful flavor that could hold its own with any more conventional, tomato-based pie. It also demonstrated how a few well-chosen ingredients can yield far more flavor, or at least more satisfying flavor, than you can get from an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach.
Not that I dislike squash, but aside from the orange hue, I never would have guessed that to be one of the toppings on this pie. Maybe it was the effect of pureeing and then cooking the squash, or the influence of the other toppings, but the squash flavor was toned down and subtle, rendering the overall flavor of this pie simultaneously familiar and difficult to pin down. The squash provided a sweet but not cloying base for the contrasting yet complementary smoky, savory and piquant flavors and aromas of the cheese, basil and pancetta. For all the relative simplicity of this pie, the result was a richness and depth of flavor that I've seldom found in any pizza.
One of my companions ordered the Diavola pizza, from the "Tradizionali" side of the menu. Topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella, spicy Italian soppressata, basil, and spicy olive oil, this was basically a kicked-up version of a red pizza, not tongue-scorchingly hot, but with enough spice to add an extra dimension to the sure-fire combination of tomatoes, cheese, basil and thin-sliced cured meat.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the toppings on these pies, I don't mean to neglect the crust, which, for my money, is what truly makes Fiamma's pizza among the best that our area has to offer. After my first visit last year, I'd heard from a friend that one of her dining companions on another occasion had complained that Fiamma's crust was wet and soggy.
Well, yes, in a way. But as you can read here, that's what to expect with authentic Neapolitan pizza. That doesn't make my friend's friend "wrong" - I mean, you like what you like, and you don't like what you don't like - but yes, you will probably need to use a knife and fork to eat Fiamma's pizza, just as you would if you went to a pizzeria in Naples, Italy.
But I did mention that "wet" complaint to Giuseppe, to get his response. He attributed it to Americans' unfamiliarity with the Neapolitan style, telling me, "I never said that's the way [i.e., with a crisp crust] I make pizza. I say, 'this is Neapolitan pizza.' You know, it's like going to Chicago, eating the Chicago style pizza, and saying it's too thick."
And he raised another good point. Fiamma's pizzas cook in an incredibly hot, 1000-degree oven, where they spend about one minute before they're done. The result is a charred but not burnt crust, and toppings that are cooked but not blackened or dried out.
And a crust that, frankly, is not crackly crisp throughout. As Giuseppe put it, "Nothing that cooks in one minute can ever be crispy." Perhaps a "naked" disk of thin dough would get thoroughly crisp, but with toppings, a pizza dough simply cannot exude enough moisture in one minute to develop the firmness that is typical of American style pizza. In fact, Giuseppe said, in Italy, a pizzeria that served a customer a pizza with a thoroughly crisp crust would likely be met with an annoyed, "What did you serve me, a tile?"
Giuseppe also cited Fiamma's use of fresh mozzarella as a reason why his pies cannot be left in the oven long enough for the crust to get completely crisp. I love fresh mozzarella, but I know from experience that it can go from delectably creamy to unappetizingly rubbery in the blink of an eye. Fiamma's pizzas stay in the oven just long enough for the cheese to melt - any longer, and you'd end up with white Silly Putty, or worse.
Having said all that, I should add that on this visit, my pizza crust was not wet. No, this was not the kind of pizza that one could eat with one-hand, folded down the middle like a New York-style slice, but it certainly wasn't soggy, either. So just know, if you go there, what to expect, and what not to expect. And by all means, dare to stray from your pizza comfort zone. I'm glad I did.
Fiamma, 1308 Buffalo Road, Gates 14624
270-4683
info@fiammarochester.com
Mon - Thu: 11:45 am - 9 pm, Fri: 11:45 am - 10 pm, Sat: 4 pm - 10 pm, Sun: 11:45 am - 9 pm

Ask the PIzzaiolo: How Much Difference Does the Pizzaiolo Make?

Ever order the same pizza from the same pizzeria on two different occasions, and one's good, and the other sucks? A lot of us have, and we've wondered, why? Same ingredients, same oven, same place - how can the pizzas come out so much different?
I recently got an email from a reader asking my opinion about why that phenomenon occurs. Specifically, he noticed that on certain days of the week (typically the days the shop owner was there) the pizza was very good. On other days, the crust was gummy, oily ... not good.
So how and why did that happen? How could one person make such a noticeable difference?
I had some theories, but in all honesty I had to admit that it would be better to turn to an expert - somebody who makes pizza for a living.
So I've asked a couple of local pizzaioli that basic question - how much difference does the individual pizzaiolo make? As long as you're working with the same basic setup, procedure, and ingredients, is the human element really that important in making pizza?
"Of course." That was the answer I got from Joe Staffieri of Joe's Brooklyn Pizza, who started out making pizza in his shop's namesake borough decades ago. Making pizza, he said, "is an art form," and can't be reduced to a simple formula. There are many nuances to making a good pizza, though few customers will ever be aware of them - unless they're done badly. This is my analogy, but think of it like an NFL game - if the refs do their job right, you don't notice the officiating at all. It's only when they get it wrong that they get noticed.
So what are some of those subtle elements that make the difference between a good and a bad pizza? Well, as Joe explained, there's a direct proportion between the freshness of the ingredients and the degree of skill required to turn them into a good pie. The reason is simple - the more you start from scratch, the more opportunities there are to get something wrong along the way. Anybody who's wondered why their spaghetti sauce or chicken soup never tastes as good as their mom's or their grandma's will know what I mean.
The specific ways to screw up a pizza are almost too numerous to mention. Every step of the process has its pitfalls. Was the sauce overcooked? Is it watery? Did it burn? Did the dough rise enough, or too much? Was it properly stretched to a uniform thickness? Were the toppings applied in the right proportions? How carefully was the pizza monitored once it went in the oven? Was it turned while baking, to avoid uneven cooking from hot spots in the oven?
Some of those same issues were mentioned, with a slightly different twist, by Tony Proietti of 2 Ton Tony's. Tony, who comes from a long line of Rochester pizzamakers, described making pizza - pizza dough, in particular - not as an art form but as a "science experiment." It's easy to understand why, as pizza dough, like most bread dough, includes yeast, a living organism. Yeast may be a relatively simply life form, but its workings can be mysterious and not entirely predictable. Any given batch of dough is subject to many factors, including the potency of the yeast, the ambient temperature and humidity, the length of the rise, and the way in which it's physically handled.
Tony also suggested that there may be a subconscious element at work as well, on the part of the customer. It's entirely possible that a customer may have a certain comfort level when he or she sees the owner behind the counter that's missing when it's a young employee making the pizza. Maybe the customer tends to cut the owner a little more slack, and scrutinizes the novice's pizza more closely. To go back to my NFL analogy, this season's replacement refs may have made more than their share of bad calls, but they were undoubtedly put under more of a microscope than the regular refs.
That said, Tony did acknowledge that the presence of an owner can make a noticeable difference in the final product. With more of a personal, emotional and financial stake in the business, an owner will typically tend to take more care in making a pizza, and to be more aware of and sensitive to the little things that can make a difference in the final product. An employee may look at pizzamaking as just a job, not a craft to which he or she is dedicated.
So does all that mean that you should only order a pizza when the owner is on the premises? Well, it's not quite that simple. Sure, if the owner is around, that's probably a good thing - like going to a restaurant on the night when the head chef is on duty - but the converse is not necessarily true. If you find that the pizza from your local pizzeria is consistently subpar on certain days, then try somewhere else on those days (and speak to the owner about it!). But it's certainly possible to get good pizza made by ordinary employees.
The key is good training, and a dedicated staff. Joe expressed some disdain for pizzerias that overly rely on inexperienced employees with minimal training, and he stressed that he's personally trained his entire staff, who clearly know what they're doing, and do it well. Tony expressed a similar sentiment when he told me, "Come work here for a week and you'll see" how much goes into making good pizza. "You have to have good people that you've trained and worked with."
Some places try to avoid the whole issue by taking skill out of the equation entirely, going with premade crusts, premeasured ingredients and conveyor ovens that require little or no human intervention until the pie is done. I'm not saying you can't produce a good pizza that way, but the best pizzas I've had have come from places where the pizzaiolo has more hands-on control over the entire process, start to finish.
Finally, even an accomplished pizzaiolo will make mistakes from time to time, and a good one knows when to start over. No good pizzeria should let a substandard pie go out the door.
In short, there's no substitute for - no shortcuts around - good training and experience, and for care and attention to detail. Pizzamaking is part art, part science, and for the best pizzaioli, it's a lifelong learning process. When I asked Joe Staffieri how long it takes to master the craft, his answer was, "I've been doing this since I was 13 and I don't know if I've mastered it yet."