"Fortune never just happens; it comes because you have worked for it", says Francesco Martucci and, in his case, it could not be more true.
A lot of work has been carried out by this Italian
(32 years old to be exact, because he started working when he was 10) who one day set out to reach the top and today is the best
pizzaiolo
in the world,
according to the 50 Top Pizza ranking,
the bible of the sector .
These days, this
rebellious and innovative genius
has been in Spain to bring, for the first time to our country, one of his creations, which he has concocted hand in hand with the team of Grosso Napoletano,
a Spanish chain of artisanal pizzerias.
For a month (
from Friday February 25 to March 27
), the group's premises (in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Zaragoza) will serve
Mani di Martucci
,
an ode to a single ingredient, the tomato.
"We use four varieties in
three consistencies:
semi-dry confit cherry, yellow and red datterini and dried tomatoes from Piennolo del Vesuvio, with fiordilatte mozzarella and primo sale bufala cheese", explains the
pizzaiolo
,
body and soul of I Masanielli, his pizzeria from Caserta
, north of Naples, to which Roman
legions
and from all over Italy come.
"We have opted for this pizza because it is a tribute to the tomato, to that
product of the land and of the Mediterranean climate that Italy and Spain share
", he comments in Madrid, recently
landed
from Barcelona, where he has also presented this ephemeral snack (17.90 euros) and the third installment of the
Edizione Limitata
project that the Spanish brand began in May
with the Formaje cheese boutique and continued with chef Nino Redruello (La Ancha Family).
Fabrizio Polacco, executive chef of Grosso Napoletano, and Francesco.
But it has taken time for the hands of master Martucci to reach this point, more than two years.
The pandemic delayed the Spanish appointment
... And as soon as February began, the team from Grosso Napoletano
moved to Caserta
.
"He doesn't collaborate with just anyone, he always says that he has to see how he works first,"
adds Fabrizio Polacco, the group's executive chef.
And what he saw convinced this gladiator who has made pizza a particular universe, which they call
Martucciland
,
where he investigates the flavors, the textures, the ingredients
to bring this traditional dish into the 21st century.
"
For the most purist or traditionalists, my pizza is provocative and blasphemous," he
acknowledges.
Yet to me he's a
rockstar
,
like Jim Morrison, Cliff Richard, Lou Reed.
The
margherita
is like the lilting voice of
Nico from The Velvet Underground
", explains Francesco with his own, gritty, somewhat broken and with echoes of an Italian singer.
Stay in musical key.
"Our pizza
is like the music of the 60s, different, the idea was not to change it, but to do something to improve it
."
And having her own identity.
He adds: "They are recognizable by their aesthetics, by the search for the product, by the enhancement of the territory...".
But they also tell stories.
"Each one has to stimulate memory."
For example, the one with mézclum and vitello meat (veal), which recalls the meat with salad that her mother put on the table for her, when she came home from playing in the street.
Mani di Martucci, the ephemeral pizza that will be in Spain for a month.
Memories that are present every day, because if the teacher does not forget something , it
is that once he was an apprentice and that he started from the bottom and out of necessity.
"When I was 10 years old, I started working in my uncle's pizzeria [one of the few in Caserta]
to help my family. We were very humble
, sometimes we had no electricity or gas. I started cleaning bathrooms and washing dishes. .".
And, meanwhile, he watched the
pizzaiolos
work .
Step by step he was "conquering" pizza:
"They let me cut the tomato, the mozzarella
.... At 12, 13 years old I was already making pizza."
She caught him and became her passion and "that the first one, a
margherita
, fell to the ground".
You learn from mistakes and Francesco apprehended everything around him.
At the age of 20 he started working in a pizzeria that put out 35 pizzas a week and in a short time he reached 300. In 2001 he set up his first
I Masanielli, with his mother, his brother and his sister
.
"It was a small take-out pizza place."
In 2012 he finally opened a "restaurant with tables" and
after difficult years and times of misunderstanding, in 2017 he moved his house to an imposing space,
where
pilgrims
Neapolitan pizza fans.
-What must a pizza have to be good?
-You don't have to get tired or bored.
I could tell you that the key is in the dough, in the fermentation, in the good ingredients... But, in the end, if the pizza doesn't excite you, neither the product nor anything will arrive.
I don't want the customer to come to eat, pay and leave.
This is too mechanical, I want to move in the mouth and in the head.
And in the heart, something he achieved with a 94-year-old client: "He approached me at the pizzeria and thanked me because, finally, he
had been able to eat a whole pizza
. He had no teeth...", he is touched this man with strong shoulders and tattooed arms who always wears black.
The pizza master in his restaurant, I Masanielli.
Things like these are what make him feel "the best", and not so much that dream -already fulfilled- that every master
pizzaiolo
has of reaching the top.
However, "
I don't feel the best, but different, and I think that's why I've achieved it
. I've always wanted to grow. In a world that runs, I have to run more to achieve my goal. Running to advance, always doing more to be the best".
So popular with a soccer player, fame has come to him
as a result "of what I put on the plate
. I treat pizza with great respect, with care, because it not only makes me happy, but also the customer. When I take it out oven, I say '
vai bella
'. That's what I focus on, not fame. This is just a consequence of what I do".
A "consequence" that was slow in coming.
Today he and his pizzas are praised, but it wasn't always like that.
"There were complicated and difficult years... My style was not understood..."
.
They branded him a rebel and even a heretic, but he "ran more".
I Current Masanielli has 500 square meters, 320 of which are used for a kitchen where they only make pizzas and with the necessary technology to continue researching and innovating.
Artichoke, one of the star pizzas at I Masanielli.
"
I have 42 employees, every day we take 1,000 pizzas out of the oven and serve 500 guests
. It's a beautiful victory, although the game is not over. In the end, it doesn't matter how many pizzas you've made in your life, but how you've made them."
That's why Martucci is always in the kitchen.
"It's the only thing I know how to do: pizza. Don't ask me to change a lightbulb, I don't know."
Light and airy dough pizzas, which have made him and Caserta famous, his small homeland, whose zip code (0823) is tattooed on his right hand and "Have Hope" on his left.
The same hands that, together with those of the Grosso Napoletano team, have created
Mani di Martucci
, an ephemeral and heavenly bite.
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