NEWS

Sheboygan pizzerias re-create Italian taste

Phillip Bock
USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Of the four restaurants in Wisconsin certified to make classic Italian pizza, two are in Sheboygan.

Prohibition Bistro Chef Sestim Suma bakes pizza bread sticks Wednesday, Oct. 7, in Sheboygan.

This month, Harry's Prohibition Bistro joins Il Ritrovo in being certified by Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, which means both restaurants serve authentic Italian Neapolitan-style pizzas.

"The first time I had pizza was in Italy when I was 16 years old. Since then, I have always wanted to recreate that taste," said Harry Ljatifouski, owner of Harry's Prohibition Bistro. "I moved to the U.S. in the early '80s and have had lots of good pizza, but nothing like true pizza from Napoli."

The two pizzerias join only about 500 restaurants worldwide "who meet strict requirements that respect the tradition of the art of Neapolitan pizza-making," according to the VPN America website, a subsidiary of Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana, an international non-profit organization founded by a group of Neapolitan pizza-makers seeking to cultivate the culinary art of making Neapolitan pizza.

“It’s pride and it’s an achievement,” Ljatifouski said of becoming certified. “Besides the achievement, it preserves the way pizza was meant to be eaten. We are going to make pizza similar to how they did hundreds of years ago.”

Strict guidelines must be followed to achieve certification. Only fresh, all-natural, non-processed ingredients can be used. The flour used for the dough must be highly refined wheat flour, fresh mozzarella cheese must be used, and San Marzano tomatoes, grown on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius and imported from Italy, are recommended for making the sauce.

“What really makes it unique and wonderful are the ingredients,” said Stefano Viglietti, owner of Il Ritrovo. “It is that special flour; it’s us making the cheese from curd, which not everybody does.”

Both Viglietti and Ljatifouski create mozzarella cheese in-house, and both import San Marzano tomatoes, Water Buffalo Mozzarella cheese and flour from Italy.

With only three to four ingredients, each element must be perfect, Stefano stressed.

“It is not cheap, but if you do something with only three or four ingredients, it better be good,” Viglietti said. “If one of those ingredients isn’t good, you’re 75 percent good, that’s a C in school. That’s not good.”

The crust is just as important to the equation. The simple recipe contains only flour, water, sea salt and fresh yeast — but what's key to its success is the oven.

Pizzas must be cooked in wood-fired ovens for only 90 seconds at 900 degrees, according to the regulations. The method results in the 12-inch pizza being a little crunchy at the edges, but keeps the crust soft and elastic.

A pizza chef at Il Ritrovo in Sheboygan cooks pizza in a wood-fired oven.

“When you look at store-bought food, it has ingredients like xanthan gum,” Ljatifouski said. “If I do it myself, it tastes better and doesn’t have any of those additives in there. If you’re going to cook, why not do it yourself? We love doing things ourselves.”

The cost to become certified can be considerable. Ljatifouski said he purchased specialized equipment, such as the wood-fired oven, a low-speed mixer and a dough-proofing cabinet.

The certification has an initial fee of $2,000, plus a $300 inspection fee. The restaurant must also pay for travel expenses of an inspector during a two-day visit to monitor the restaurant's operations to ensure they fit the certification. An annual fee is required to maintain membership, and further inspections are possible.

To prepare, Ljatifouski built a wood-fired pizza oven in the backyard of his house two years ago to experiment with crusts and trained with a Los Angeles chef in proper technique.

“We knew we wanted pizza,” he said. “We wanted to test the dough and the cooking. We tried charcoal and gas, but the key is to have a 900-degree oven. We could not achieve that with anything but wood.”

Il Ritrovo has been certified in Napoletana pizza-making since 2000 — and was the fifth restaurant in the nation to achieve the certification. Viglietti said he was already making pizza in the Italian style when he learned of the organization.

“I didn’t know there was an association, I just knew I loved the pizza. It just tasted incredible to me. Vibrant. Bright. Different,” he said. “We were already doing everything you had to do to join.”

Viglietti said using local ingredients is also key. Last year, the chef said he spent almost $1 million on beef, pork, vegetables and other ingredients from farms within a 50-mile radius.

“That’s what Italy taught me. Yes, you have to bring the flour and the components, but then you put on it stuff grown right here," he said. "That’s where we bring the best of local and put it with these special things we cherry-pick from around the world.”

Ljatifouski operates the restaurant with his brother Al Latifi, who said the extra effort to achieve certification is worth it.

“It feels good when people are leaving happy and it has to do with that little effort you put in and the time you put in,” Latifi said.

Il Ritrovo is at 515 S. Eighth St. in downtown Sheboygan. Harry's Prohibition Bistro is on South Pier in Sheboygan, 668 S. Pier Drive.

Reach Phillip Bock at 920-453-5121, pbock@sheboyganpress.com, or @bockling on Twitter