They don’t speak English and have never been to Italy. But these Hangzhou pizza makers are giving Westerners a taste of home
When expats and foreign students from Zhejiang University began gobbling up Chen Quanliang’s ‘authentic’ cheap pizza, local residents wanted a slice of the action
What makes pizza irresistible? In some camps, it is the technique that is used to stretch out the dough; in others, using toppings that are culinary opposites, such as salty and sweet; in still others, avoiding using too much sauce.
But in China’s eastern city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang, where the “authentic” pizza served up at a tiny pizzeria has garnered a loyal following among Westerners, the secret is none of the above.
It is familiarity.
“Our pizzas are made to target foreigners’ stomachs,” chef Chen Quanliang told the South China Morning Post in an interview.
“Many of our customers said the pizzas taste like those from their hometowns.”
Varieties of pizza may abound globally, but the speciality at Chen’s restaurant – generically named Italian Style Pizzeria – is offering comfort food to the legions of newcomers from the Western world who turn up in this old residential community near Zhejiang University’s Yuquan campus.