Le Strade della Mozzarella (#LSDM) stopped in London on Monday to spread the joy of Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP and so did the master gelataio Simone Bonini.
The craftsman behind the Carapina shops in Florence and Rome showcased stracciatella (“torn apart”) gelato, only it was stracciatella of another kind. This one was not a chocolate chip ice cream but rather one made with stracciatella di buffalo cheese –  a soft, ultra-creamy mozzarella variant made from the milk of water buffalo.
After his presentation I had the opportunity to meet Bonini and pose a few questions about using the best techniques and ingredients and avoiding the bad ones. What, I asked Bonini, was the biggest obstacle to high-quality gelato in Italy?
His answer:
Two Euros
That’s the price most Italians expect to pay for a gelato, regardless of quality or flavour. It’s only ice cream, isn’t it? Simone says you can’t make an all-natural non-industrial gelato and earn a profit with a glace ceiling of two euros.
It’s comparable to the three-euro barrier faced by pizzerias in Italy. If a pizzeria charged 3€ for a Margherita pizza there were limits to what it could spend on tomatoes and mozzarella. Now that knowing customers respect pizza more and are willing to pay more quality is improving dramatically.
Salvatore Salvo, a star among the new generation of Neapolitan pizzaioli, also joined the #LSDM caravan for its stop in London. His performance was astounding, given that he was turning out a succession of very good Margherita pizzas in the lobby of the Baglioni Hotel, opposite Hyde Park, from a barely serviceable electric oven and not a wood-fired one.
At Salvo, his acclaimed pizzeria in San Giorgio a Cremano, a few miles southeast of Naples, Salvatore and his brother Francesco charge a wopping 5 € for their Margherita. The extra two euros enables these self-described ingegneri (“engineers”) of pizza to use prized San Marzano DOP tomatoes as well top-quality fior di latte (cow’s milk mozzarella) and extra virgin olive oil from local producers.
The next Italian frontier to conquer, after the three-euro pizza and the two-euro gelato, might be the one-euro espresso. Much as I hate to be arguing for higher prices and much as I love the custom and convenience of paying just one euro for an espresso at virtually any bar in Italy I’d be willing to pay a little more if the coffee were superior.
No one likes paying more for the same thing. But not all espresso or pizza or gelato or mozzarella is the same. I can lend my support to price inflation when its matched by quality inflation, can’t you?
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