Sweet pizza, the new dessert in pizzeria
Who doesn't love sweets? The very word “sweet” already suggests pleasant feelings and disposes you to a smiling soul. When at a restaurant, the dessert moment is one of the most important ones and you cannot fail it, although a major trend these days wants it to be less and less sweet. Besides, the end of the meal is often one of the most easily remembered steps in the whole experience, even more so if the last course did not live up to the others. Whether you call it sweet or dessert, it must primarily be good and possibly visually pleasing (and this applies for all intents and purposes to savory as well; in this regard, see the cheese cart). But what happens in the pizzeria, since this type of venue – at its highest expressions – is getting closer and closer to the idea of a restaurant? While the older generation will remember legendary industrial brands with their chocolate truffles, mountains of profiteroles and other doubtful sweet amenities, which have not yet disappeared in many venues, truth be told, the pizzerias where people work more shrewdly have developed a line of pastries worthy of the name. Not only with what can be considered 'traditional' desserts though, because – you know – pizza is open to a thousand different interpretations.
The birth of the dessert pizza
And so, at some point, dessert pizza appeared. Actually, some examples already popped up such as improbable Nutella-covered flatbreads and similar oddities. Nothing really serious, until someone among the better known (and more serious) pizza makers finally decided to take a stand about dessert pizza. Let's start with Franco Pepe of Pepe in Grani in Caiazzo, a multiple award-winning professional who had already demonstrated great versatility with his AnaNascosta, a remarkable pineapple pizza, not exactly sweet but certainly conceivable as a dessert. Then came his Crisommola with Vesuvius apricots – an endangered Slow Food presidium – which was the first sweet pizza to be awarded in the Gambero Rosso guide. It is a fried dough base, served in slices, with ricotta di bufala cheese, lemon zest, "crisommole" apricots jam, toasted hazelnuts, dehydrated Caiazzo olives and mint leaves. And then there is Gianni Di Lella, who comes from Campania and has a distinct Modenese accent (from northern Italy), and who has been among the forerunners of the trend, complaining about a trivialization of sweet pizza by so many of his colleagues.
So here is his Margherita-not-Margherita with Italian-style meringue, strawberry tomato jam and basil, or even Tiramisu pizza with a brown sugar caramelized base, coffee ice cream added to cold pizza, siphon-whipped mascarpone, coffee and dark chocolate powder and finally a sprinkle of steamed star anise.
Also in Montepaone, a small town in the province of Catanzaro, Calabria, and precisely at Bob Alchimia a Spicchi, Roberto Davanzo (Bob) offers “milk sweet pizzas” such as the "Ricotta and Bergamotta" pizza, which was awarded by Gambero Rosso as the best sweet pizza in 2020 and which is made with bergamot ricotta cream, bergamot coulis and gel, licorice crumble, toasted almonds, and mint.
There are also the “sweet pizzas by the slice” such as the 'Thyme and Lemon, Hazelnut and Coffee,' a tribute to Federico Cari with hazelnut cremoso, iced éclat cubes, tonka bean crumble, thyme and lemon sorbet and black coffee reduction.
Meanwhile, in Trastevere, a neighborhood in Rome, we find pizzeria Illuminati owned by Pier Daniele Seu, who does not lack creativity even on sweet pizzas. Among the sweet pizzas on the menu you will find the Mont Blanc with chestnut puree, whipped cream, rum chestnut paste, chocolate shavings and chestnut and meringue crumble, or even the Caffè Leccese with almond milk cream, coffee beans covered in dark chocolate, coffee cream and gel, Baileys gel and almond crumble.
So many ideas, so many flavors, and the public reacts with interest to sweet pizza. From a gastronomic point of view, this is a winning idea, especially if the product is technically made by a professional. Of course, it is likely that the sweet version of pizza will never fully replace dessert, and it will take time to overcome the resistance of reluctant consumers.
The road, however, is marked out and is going in the direction that sees pizza – in its best expressions – getting closer and closer to haute cuisine. Let’s now talk about the question of pairings as well. Just as the taboo of using wine with pizza has now been abundantly overcome and people are beginning to understand that even mixed drinks can play an important role when paired with pizza, in the same way it will be fun to see what the trends related to pairing drinks with sweet pizza will be.
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