Secrets behind dough of ‘world’s best pizzas’ in Hong Kong revealed
- Franco Pepe’s famous pizzas at Kytaly are made of dough that adheres to strict hydration and temperature guidelines
- Watch an Italian chef in Macau make an authentic Neapolitan pizza
Even though pizza dough is only made from four basic ingredients – flour, yeast, salt and water – each pizzeria makes it differently.
Depending on the type of crust desired, whether that be thin or thick, brittle, pillowy, chewy or tender, the pizzaiolo or pizziaiola will adjust the ingredients, mixing method, fermentation time and how the pizza is baked. Even the humidity and temperature can affect the results.
The newest pizzeria in Hong Kong is Kytaly, which opened in September on Wyndham Street in the city’s Central district. It serves pizzas designed by Franco Pepe, a third-generation baker who has spent more than 25 years developing the perfect dough. His pizzeria, Pepe in Grani, in the Italian city of Naples, is said to serve the best pizza in the world.
With the help of an Italian partner, Pepe branched out to Geneva in Switzerland and opened the first Kytaly in 2016, which sells some 1,000 pizzas a day. And now those pizzas are available in Hong Kong, cooked in a specially designed oven that bakes them in around 90 seconds.
The edges of these pizzas are thick and high thanks to carefully prepared dough that is easy to digest, says Alessandro Bortesi, the partner who helped bring Kytaly to both Geneva and Hong Kong.
As a child Bortesi loved eating pasta and pizza, and even though he became an architect, he always wanted to open a restaurant that served two of his favourite foods.