Nice pizza for 65 euros? Formula 1 team boss Briatores’ overpriced pizza chain is driving the Italians crazy
Naples. Everyone who visited Naples in the last few days and was in the right place on the right day – namely in the pizzeria “Gino e Toto Sorbillo” on Via dei Tribunali in the heart of the old town – could enjoy a free pizza. And perhaps the tastiest and most original that can be found in Naples: Gino Sorbillo is considered the best of the countless pizza olias in the city – he is certainly the most famous. The act of free pizza, which other pizzerias had also joined, was the answer to an intolerable provocation – at least that’s how it felt in Naples – by Flavio Briatore.
Read more after the ad
Read more after the ad
Pizza has always been a popular dish and should remain so.
Gino Sorbillo, famous pizzaioli from Naples
The former team boss of the Benetton and Renault racing team and ex-partner of Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum announced this week that he would open a branch of his “Crazy Pizza” restaurant chain in Naples, of all places, the hometown of pizza. In these jetset shops, which already have branches on the Costa Smeralda (in Briatore’s Club “Billionaire”), in Monte-Carlo, London, Rome and, more recently, in Milan, even the basic version costs pizza margherita. 15 euros. Depending on the ingredients, the price list goes up to 65 euros – if you order the flatbread with Spanish Pata Negra ham. In Naples, on the other hand, you can get an original Margherita from 4 to 5 euros in famous pizzerias.
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/madsack/HVXF45Q4XJFRPOY3COTBJNQUX4.jpg)
Well-known Neapolitan pizza maker Gino Sorbillo explains how to make a real pizza.
© Source: picture alliance / IPA
Read more after the ad
Read more after the ad
Sorbillo accuses Briatore of making a grossly overpriced rich pizza that ignores the soul, history and culture of the dish. “Pizza has always been a popular dish and should remain so,” Sorbillo emphasized during the free campaign. “It makes everyone happy and full and should remain affordable for everyone: for parents, children, workers, the unemployed, retirees. Everyone is just before pizza.”
Craft of the Napolitan pizzaioli is the intangible cultural heritage of the world
The craftsmanship of the Neapolitan pizzaioli – and thus indirectly also pizza margherita in the national colors green (basil), white (mozzarella) and red (tomatoes) – was included in UNESCO’s inventory in 2017, not least because of the popular. nature of the product intangible world cultural heritage. According to a study, “pizza” is also the world’s most famous Italian word, ahead of “spaghetti”.
One round thing – and in fact, Briatore could have left it out with the announcement of the opening of his “Crazy Pizza” store. But he did not do so in the face of the protest storm from Naples, on the contrary: he did much more. “Pizza has long been international, Naples has nothing to do with it anymore, and I like it from Salerno better,” explained the 72-year-old entrepreneur and cheerful. His pizza is “the best”, as his guests have confirmed. And: “If you sell a pizza for 4 euros, you can not make money. What ingredients do they use? ” Briatore wondered.
Read more after the ad
Read more after the ad
Controversy over national law from the poor south
The claim that Naples’ pizzaioli used bad ingredients on their pizzas eventually broke the camel’s back – the controversy over national law in the poor south spread throughout Italy. The Milanese “Corriere della Sera” was surprised that the northern Italian Briatore – he comes from Cuneo in Piedmont – feels encouraged to give Neapolitans advice on how to prepare a “proper” pizza. “It’s like the Neapolitans trying to teach the Piedmontese Nutella company Ferrero how to make a chocolate spread,” the newspaper wrote. And the Roman “Repubblica” calculated that a high-quality pizza margherita could well be made for 4 euros – the pure material costs amounted to a maximum of 2 euros.
The pizza dispute has long raged on social networks. It is also sometimes reminded that in the summer of 2020, anti-pandemic measures were grossly violated in Briatores’ “Billionaire” in Sardinia, and that his club had therefore temporarily become Italy’s largest corona hotspot. The Corona story did not help his popularity, nor did he make any new friends with his pizzeria plans in Naples. The following entry was found on Twitter at Briatores’ address: “The most important ingredient in Neapolitan pizzaioli is honesty. Something you do not have.”
Download our new RND app for Android and iOS here for free