Nutella, filled with mozzarella – really? What is ‘nutzzarella’ and why are Italy’s top chefs up in arms about this cheese and chocolate combo?

Nutella and mozzarella are two iconic Italian foods. The heavenly chocolate and nut spread is famous and popular, as is the soft cheese that oozes milk, making a perfect pizza topping when melted.

But would you ever taste mozzarella that oozes out chocolate?

Well, you now can – if you want to.

A dairy shop in the Italian southern region of Puglia has launched a Nutella-filled mozzarella. The chocolate and hazelnut spread is folded inside the cow cheese mozzarella balls, and the sweet filling is released when the cheese is cut into, much like a chocolate fondant dessert.

“We started experimenting with it a while back when my little son, who loves Nutella, wondered if we could ever make a mozzarella filled with it, so my husband tried and it was a success. Kids adore Nutella, now they can eat it inside mozzarella,” says Enza Semeraro, the owner of the dairy shop, located in the town of Martina Franca.

The Semeraros have called it “chocolate mozzarella” and suggest savouring it as a dessert given the Nutella taste prevails over the cheesy flavour. They make their signature chocolate mozzarella especially for weddings and special occasions, but they are now being flooded with requests.

But the provocative Nutella mozzarella, in a country where culinary traditions die hard, is already sparking controversy and raising eyebrows among top cheesemongers and Michelin-starred chefs.

“It’s quite an abomination. This isn’t mozzarella, it sounds more like a carnival trick someone came up with to astonish and provoke,” says Domenico Raimondo, president of Italy’s Consortium for the Protection of Campania Buffalo Mozzarella and owner of a leading dairy farm in Pattipaglia, a town in the southern Campania region where the real Italian mozzarella is made.