Authentic Roman Style Pizza – The Best in St. Pete!
We’ve tried a lot of pizza – lots in the US, Italy, even New Zealand, China, and Japan. But we have a really cool hidden jem right here in the Tampa Bay area. Tucked into the wonderful Foodie Labs – St. Pete is a new brand called Pizza 2Point Dough. It’s very clear that the owners love what they do, and have a lot of dedication to making a great pizza experience with special doughs, hand-crafted sauces, and artisan ingredients.
They specialize right now in Roman style pizzas – pizza al talgio and pinza. Both are fun, and different from your typical Neapolitan style or NY style.
Pizza al Talgio
Pizza al TalgioOne style that we really love, and haven’t had in the US is pizza al taglio (“pizza by the cut”). We visited an unassuming pizzeria in the outskirts of Rome, where we had maybe the greatest slice of pizza ever. The taste brought us back to childhood memories – one of the main pizzerias in my upstate PA town made Roman pizza – It was rectangular, about ¾ inch high, olive oil in the crust, slicked with a nearly imperceptible varnish of tomato sauce, simply with grated parmesan. There was always a box of this pizza (called “pitz” in the Southern Italian dialect) on my Mom’s table – which we would eat room temperature or toasted. But the best part of this pizza was the crust: full of irregularly sized holes, tender and chewy in equal measure, with a yeasty, tangy, complex flavor. The same pizza can be found at Pizza 2Point Dough
Pizza al talgio is baked in rectangular pans and cut into slabs like Sicilian pizza, but its much lighter – bubbly crumb and delicately crisp bottom bear more of a resemblance to good focaccia. Pizza al taglio is a lot like an open-faced sandwich, with fresh or uncooked items such as salad greens, soft cheeses, or cured meats piled on when the crust comes out of the oven. Roman pizzerias adorn it in a variety of ways and display it behind glass in deli-style cases, where it is sold by the length and cut with scissors (al taglio means “by the cut”). The creators of Pizza 2Point Dough have traveled throughout Italy – then experimented for years until they perfected the crust and ingredients to make the best Roman pizza outside of Rome.
Pinza
PinzaPinza (also spelled “pinsa) is a word that comes from the Latin pinsere (to press, to spread out) and this suggests the fact that it is pressed with the hands until obtaining an oval shape.
It’s hard to believe that the origins of pinza was a peasant comfort food – because now folks from all walks of life love this version of pizza. Another wonderful street food of Roman sometimes gets funky with ingredients, and is sometimes found at Michelin star restaurants with very upscale additions (lobster, Iberico ham, caviar, etc.).
There are some major difference between pizza, pizza al talgio, and pinza. The pinza crust is:
- Light and very easy to digest, thanks to long fermentation using a sourdough starter.
- It’s crunchy on the borders, yet soft on the inside – a bit like a fantastic Italian bread.
- We use a special flour mix that includes bread flour, ’00’ pizza flour, and semolina.
- The dough is hand-stretched into an oval shape, different from the usual circle shape, or the rectangular pizza al talgio.
We suggest that you head over to the Foodie Labs in St. Pete (515 22nd Street South) and try Pizza 2Point Dough. Foodie Labs also has quite a few fun events/restaurant pop-ups, breakfasts, brunches and a lot more. Check them out.
