Pizza is and has for the last few years been a serious talking point in Dublin, and while the Dubs are often prepared to vote with their feet over the supremacy of a slice, the truth is, a lot of it isn’t that authentic. Fortunately, some restaurants in recent years have adopted the great Neapolitan Pizza, which, among other specifications, must be sized for an individual and usually cooked in a wood-fired oven.
Forno 500° Pizzeria right next door to the Olympia Theatre Dublin passes the litmus test: Its “DOP” version of the Margherita—the classic combination of tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil—comes straight from the dining room’s glowing oven, with melted islands of buffalo-milk mozzarella on a layer of SAN Marzano tomato sauce. The oak flavoured crust meets two critical standards: A properly blistered char and a wonderful raised crust with thin base. Here’s how it evolved.
They went back to Italy to train at the Pizzeria Gaetano Genovesi in Naples under famed 3rd -generation pizzaioli Gaetano himself. Where they continued learning the intricacies of Neapolitan pizza and trained their team of Pizzaiolo’s for Forno 500°, their new Pizzeria.
Forno 500° trained under the watchful eye of Gaentano himself. During this time Forno500 learned of the old mill in Naples where the best pizza flour could be sourced and suppliers of the wonderful San Marzano DOP tomatoes and a local dairy in Campagna producing wonderful DOP buffalo mozzarella packed with flavour.
During their training in Naples they discovered that in the very best pizzerias there, there was one common element that Ireland had not yet had. A bespoke Fererra oven that is built specifically on site by hand from local Neapolitan craftsmen using ancient techniques.
There are only two artisan wood fired oven manufacturers left in Naples. We selected the best a Fourth generation Neapolitan oven manufacturer. Forno 500° convinced the FerArra family to leave their factory in Naples to make their very first fixed oven in Ireland. Brick-by-brick from the ground up, a team of three artisan oven builders brought the ancient style of oven building using Old World Neapolitan techniques to Dublin.