Former Renault F1 principal Flavio Briatore gestures in the paddock after the qualifying session of the Italian F1 Grand Prix at the Monza circuit September 10, 2011. REUTERS/Giorgio Perottino
ROME—Pizza: high-end gourmet fare or affordable food for the people? That is the question pitting Italian billionaire Flavio Briatore against chefs in Naples, where pizza making has Unesco world heritage status.
A staple for Italians and a favorite around the world, pizza is traditionally made of simple ingredients, with restaurants in the southern city of Naples serving the classic pizza Margherita for as little as 4 euros ($4.24).
Briatore challenged these low prices in his answer to criticism of the prices charged at his Crazy Pizza restaurants, in London, Montecarlo, Riyadh and Italy, where a Spanish “pata negra” ham-topped pizza sells for 65 euros and customers are charged 49 euros for ones covered in black truffle shavings.
“Pizza at 4 euros? What do these people put in pizzas?” Briatore wrote on Instagram, dismissing cheap Neapolitan Margheritas as “bricks of dough with a puddle of tomato.”
Chef Sergio Miccu, president of the Neapolitan pizza maker association, hit back, accusing Briatore of betraying the pizza’s humble heritage. “Pizza has fed entire generations, overcoming … war and cholera,” he said in a statement.
In response to Briatore’s remarks, one of Italy’s most famous pizza chefs, Gino Sorbillo, served free pizza in front of his family restaurant in central Naples.
“[Briatore] says that cheap pizza is not good? We make it like this, taste it and tell me what it’s like,” Sorbillo told RTL radio.
Offering a truce, Sorbillo has suggested that for one evening, Briatore’s cooks should prepare their dishes side-by-side with Neapolitan chefs “to let his clients, used to gourmet pizza, taste a typical Neapolitan one, in a healthy challenge.” —REUTERS