In Verona, Pizza That Is All About the Crust

On the raw, rainy afternoon in Verona, Italy, this past November, a polyglot gaggle of photo-snapping tourists unfazed from the weather jammed the courtyard of Verona’s 14th-century Casa di Giuletta, supposedly the home from the real-life inspiration for Shakespeare’s Juliet.

Down a side street just three blocks away, would be a far superior attraction that almost all presumably missed : Saporè DownTown, an intriguingly experimental contemporary pizzeria that hours later was so filled with locals there would be a one-hour wait. Which regardless of the fact the place had not even appeared yet on Google Maps.

I almost missed it too — spotting a web mention minutes before hopping a bus from Verona to San Martino Buon Albergo, the small village nearby where 51 year-old chef Renato Bosco opened the initial Saporè in 2006. It‘s since appeared on several best-pizza-in-Italy lists created him a nationally recognized chef.

" Saporè” is definitely an amalgam from the Italian word for flavor and Mr. Bosco’s nickname, Rè. But it’s a small misnomer : he is much more obsessed with crunch and pliability, lightness and heft. Basically, he is really a crust man, whose many years of experimentation have rendered a wild choice of results, including some that are pizza among others which are rather out-there interpretations.

At Saporè Downtown, those vary from crispy-chewy, almost-traditional round pies with no added yeast to his triangular, ethereally light aria di pane style and also the oddball mozzarella di pane, inspired by Asian-style steamed buns. (They seem like slightly smushed spheres of fresh mozzarella, hence the name. )

The menu is merely in Italian, but patient, bilingual servers helped my party of two plow smartly through much from the menu by 50 percent meals. We‘re especially enchanted using the no-added yeast “Pancetta” pizza, which came slathered with pumpkin cream, dolloped with mozzarella, studded with pancetta cotta and topped with generous shavings of nutty, sharp asiago stravecchio. Mr. Bosco told me that he used the pumpkin cream to please the “many people” who don‘t like tomato sauce. I adore tomato sauce and didn’t miss it in the least here.
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Another winner was the “Tatin Cipolla” inside the rectangular “PizzaCrunch” category. (You are able to likely guess that style’s distinguishing feature. ) On top is really a gloriously messy, multi-textured heap of red onion, radicchio, asiago and chopped hazelnuts. “La Classica Sempre Buona, ” inside the aria di pane section, features burrata dripping out from under 30-month aged prosciutto as though it were melting ice cream. It‘s both Instagram-ready and delicious.

Drinks are an afterthought (though there‘s a short but varied Italian beer list ), but dessert Isn‘t : don’t miss strudel-in-a-glass, a version of the pastry coming from the northern semiautonomous Trentino-Alto Adige region of Italy deconstructed into layers and tweaked, with welcome additions like ricotta foam and pistachio mousse.

To the most act : many of the more out-there creations may not be for everybody. The glistening, fatty slices of tongue topping a mozzarella di pane crammed with celery-carrot cream wasn‘t my style so we didn’t (dare to ) try the PizzaBagels, their dough boiled in water aromatized with curry, Amarone wine or barbecue sauce.

“I believe greatly in the significance of confrontation and exchange with cultures differ from mine, ” Mr. Bosco said. You are able to claim that again.

source : https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/travel/sapore-downtown-restaurant-review-verona-italy.html?smid=tw-nytfood&smtyp=cur