Pizza School in Italy - Our Experience

Alright, here’s the deal: we are snobs when it comes to pizza. At home, we make pizza at least twice a week – making the dough and sauce from scratch. It’s really good, but it’s no Neapolitan pizza. 

For our first trip to Napoli, it was non-negotiable that we would go to pizza school – real pizza school. Thus, we found ourselves at the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, in front of Enzo, a passionate pizzaiolo. Pizzaioli come from all over the world to learn at this school, and the school even audits pizzerias to authenticate that the pizza they serve is traditional Neapolitan pizza, when the pizzerias claim it is. (PS -- I cannot recommend this class highly enough.)

Enzo had a lot of opinions and a flair for the dramatic. When I nearly put oregano on a marinara pizza, he let out a yelp. “Oregano?! No!” For him, this was a crime worse than most. We were very entertained.

The class was very technical, and we got to make everything from scratch. Even though we'd done this a thousand times before, we still learned a ton. Besides learning that one must never put oregano on a Margherita pizza, we learned a lot about shaping and stretching the dough properly, about turning the pizza in the oven using the peel, and about proofing times.

The most dramatic moment of class came when we were putting our pizzas into the massive commercial ovens. Enzo first showed us how to remove the pizza from the long peel and then handed the peel over to... Nick, the first person in the class to do it! Enzo made the sign of the cross and looked up to the sky as Nick put his pizza in. It was a success! Enzo celebrated it with pride. 

Pizza school was fun, hilarious, but also motivating. We learned a ton about something we’re passionate about. It was the kind of class that makes you (read: me) want to buy a $5,000 oven and open a pizzeria. 

I’ve yet to do that, but I’m mulling it over. We’ll see how my job search goes in January. 

Note: This post was originally published on Maria Laposata's linkedin in December 2023.