The San Paolo restaurant won the competition created in Italy
By Lucas Rizzi – The best Neapolitan pizza in the world is Brazilian and is found in Sao Paulo, a metropolis that symbolizes Italian immigration.
With two units in the capital of São Paulo, Leggera Pizza Napoletana this week won an award given every year by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN), a body founded in 1984 to defend and promote an art declared intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO.
The San Paolo restaurant was the winner of the fifth edition of the AVPN Best Pizzeria trophy, which awarded a restaurant outside Naples for the first time. “It’s a great honor,” André Nevoso Guidon, partner and executive chef of Leggera, tells ANSA. “It’s nice to know that you enjoy the respect of your pizza chef colleagues even if you are outside Italy”, he added.
Voting takes place among the over one thousand pizza chefs associated with the AVPN, which accepts as members only pizzerias that faithfully follow the Neapolitan tradition, which includes a wood-fired oven, light dough, without fat or sugar and opened by hand, diameter less than 35 centimetres, quality ingredients and puffy edge.
Leggera opened in October 2013, in the Perdizes neighborhood, and obtained AVPN certification in January 2014. “I had already lived in Naples, attended courses, done internships and worked there, all to bring the most authentic product possible to the Brazilian ” , said Guidon, who opened the pizzeria together with his brother-in-law Fabio Muccio and his wife’s uncle, Bruno Caccavale, originally from Naples.
“There is no other type of product in there other than Neapolitan pizza,” guarantees the executive chef. At 44, Guidon worked in the field of audio engineering in the family business, but has always had a strong connection with gastronomy thanks to his mother, the daughter of an Italian born in the United States.
Much of the chef’s childhood was spent at his maternal family’s dairy, which produced Italian specialties such as ricotta and fior di latte. “I’ve always had that thing very alive inside me, so it was a natural leap. I started chasing it, my wife’s family is all Neapolitan, and I decided to take this journey to discover the original pizza. It was love at first bite,” he said.
Guidon lived in Naples for about a year and absorbed not only the techniques for making Neapolitan pizza in the correct way, but also the “pizzeria culture” of the city, whose “art of pizza makers” has been recognized as an intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO in 2017.
In addition to Perdizes, Leggera now has a unit in the Jardins neighborhood and has been a pioneer in the movement of popularizing Neapolitan pizza in São Paulo, where it is even more common to order this dish to share with family or friends, usually in the evening, and with denser mixtures and seasonings that are not always light.
But this difference in traditions was not an obstacle for Guidon. “I think curiosity overcame consumption patterns, the novelty was so great that people jumped on board,” the chef said, joking that visiting Leggera is “cheaper than going to Naples.”
Source: Terra
Ben Stock is a lifestyle journalist and author at Gossipify. He writes about topics such as health, wellness, travel, food and home decor. He provides practical advice and inspiration to improve well-being, keeps readers up to date with latest lifestyle news and trends, known for his engaging writing style, in-depth analysis and unique perspectives.
