feature
Pizza passion
Canadian Pizza’s Chef of the Year
has a love of the real traditional
Napoletana pizza
BY COLLEEN CROSS
C
arlo Raillo is what you might call a
pizza purist.
His face quickly lights up
when he talks about what it means
to make Napoletana pizza.
The 33-year-old winner of Canadian
Pizza magazine’s Chef of the Year contest,
sponsored by Saputo and Moretti Forni,
does not bother to contain his enthusiasm
as he describes what Napoletana pizza
means to him.
When making the “real, traditional
Napoletana pizza,” he says, “you use the
same flour and ingredients, but it’s how
you make it that makes the difference.”
The process is very slow, he emphasizes.
“Napoletana is the real thing.”
Raillo is a master pizzaiolo and a head of
pizza at The Parlour Italian Kitchen & Bar in
Edmonton, Alta. He works for the Century
Hospitality group, which runs several
restaurants, including The Parlour.
As winner of the contest, Raillo earned
a spot in the Non-Traditional finals of the
International Pizza Challenge at Pizza Expo
in Las Vegas in March. Here, he presented
his breakfast pie, which features fior di latte,
cherry tomatoes, bacon, ham, hash browns,
10 pizza APRIL/MAY 2014
eggs and green onions.
He credits his wife Kayla with dreaming
up the idea for his winning breakfast pizza,
playfully called “The Hangover Pizza,”
in response to his great appetite for the
morning meal.
Raillo, who was born in Naples, Italy,
met Kayla, who was born in Red Deer, Alta.,
while she was vacationing in Italy, where
Raillo lived as a young man. He followed
up with a three-week visit to Canada in
2009, worked for Sorrentino’s in Edmonton
for two years, went to Italy one summer,
then came back to Edmonton, a city with
an Italian population Raillo estimates at
between 6,000 to 7,000. He started at The
Parlour permanently in September 2009.
Raillo got his start in the pizza business
working for his father, who, after working as
chef for a hotel in Naples, moved the family
to the Calabria region of southern Italy and
opened a pizzeria.
In 1999, his parents opened a pizzeria
in the town of Tortora and called it Ottimi
Motivi, which he says loosely translates to
“good motivation for you to come back and
enjoy such a great pizza.”
Raillo, who lived much of his early
Carlo Raillo says the essence of “real traditional”
Napoletana pizza is in its slow baking.
twenties in Tortora, studied for two months
under Salvatore, a master pizzaiolo who
worked for the family business from its
beginnings. Working under Salvatore’s
guidance was invaluable to his training, says
Raillo, but much of his learning was done
by watching as the teacher was not one to
share his secrets.
The young chef explored different
pizzerias to learn everything he could about
different styles of pizza and methods of
making pizza. He made a point of learning
about organic, kamut and gluten-free pizza,
and many other kinds, because he didn’t
want to limit himself to the Napoletana style
he knew so well.
He says, smiling, that while he learned
from his father how to run the kitchen, he
taught his father how to make pizza.
Raillo and Kayla live in Edmonton now,
The Hangover Pizza
INGREDIENTS
Crust:
•
•
flour
water
•
•
natural yeast
salt
•
olive oil
Toppings:
•
•
80 grams fior di latte cheese
5 cherry tomatoes cut into 4 pieces
•
2 slices of bacon chopped and pre
cooked
•
•
30 grams chopped up ham
50 grams hash browns
•
•
20 grams green onions
2 eggs
INSTRUCTIONS
Rest dough for 24 hours. Stretch the
dough; add the fior di latte cheese, then
fresh cherry tomatoes, diced ham, bacon,
and oven-cooked grated hash browns.
Place in a wood-burning oven at 900
degrees. Remove halfway through cooking
(35 seconds), add fresh cracked egg to
centre and sprinkle with fresh green onions
and put back in oven for roughly 35 to 45
seconds. Remove and enjoy.
but Raillo goes back to Italy every summer,
usually in July and August, to help with the
family business and, in particular, to mentor
up-and-comers.
His dad, mom, sister, cousin and aunt all
work in the family pizzeria, and his brotherin-law is the manager.
This year he may go back for only five
weeks, but those weeks will cover August as
it is the busiest month for the pizzeria, due
largely to the influx of tourists.
“August in Calabria is a busy, busy time,”
he says. “I make 9,000 pizzas [more than the
usual 3,000 he makes in a month].”
When in Italy, he says he bakes pizza
from eight o’clock to midnight.
Raillo has learned a lot while working
under Salvatore and travelling, and he is
downright passionate about paying it forward by sharing his knowledge and experi-
ence with others. He teaches young people
who have had a troubled past through a
two-year community rehabilitation program for which he receives no salary. Raillo
says it’s important to help get them back
on their feet.
He also teaches students from around the
world, most of whom approach him at the
pizzeria. Raillo is especially proud of a student from Brazil named Pedro, who stayed
in Tortora and opened his own restaurant.
The two remain great friends.
His most satisfying moment comes
when a student goes through the process of
making dough 10 times only to discover no
two dough balls are the same.
“They see you touch the dough and that
it is not mathematical,” he says. When a student has this epiphany, Raillo knows he has
taught them well.
In 2002, Raillo spent a month learning
under Franco Matellicani of Association
Pizzaioli Italiani. Matellicani taught him to
make Italian pizza, although not specifically
the Napoletana tradition.
He explains the difference between Italian and Napoletana: “Napoletana is very
specific to Naples, but there are lots of other
regions that produce different types of pizza,
like Sicily, Columbia and Florence.”
Crusts are all different as are cooking methods, says Raillo. In the north,
crusts are generally crisp and gas, electric
and wood ovens are used. In the south,
crusts are generally soft and wood ovens
are favoured. In Rome, which he says
falls somewhere between the two, a deep,
square pizza is popular.
Gas ovens are so technologically
Continued on page 28
APRIL/MAY 2014 pizza 11
Pizza passion - continued from page 11
At the Manzo Food Sales and San Felice booth, Carlo made pizzas and chatted with visitors.
T
he taste of
Tradition
Manufacturers and Distributors of
Italian Specialty Cheeses and Food Products
T. 905.544.6281 F. 905.549.1196
20 Morley Street, Hamilton, Ontario, L8H 3R7
28 pizza APRIL/MAY 2014
advanced that customers can’t tell the difference between gas and
wood oven pizza, says Raillo, but he can spot it.
“The difference is in the smoky taste,” he says thoughtfully,
adding that in a wood oven you should raise the pizza up for two
to three seconds as a final step. Any distraction during those final
seconds can make or break the smoky taste.
What does the future look like? The chef envisions being a
consultant someday and helping others launch pizzerias by
spending a week with them in their restaurants, telling them
which ingredients they need to buy and teaching them other key
elements of the cooking side of the business.
Whether back in Tortora or here in Edmonton, Raillo puts on a
show for customers, who watch him work while they eat. He prefers
the open-concept pizzeria because he feeds off the response of an audience: “It gives me energy!” he exclaims.
Raillo has energy left over for sports, with basketball and the NBA
topping his list of pastimes he has not enough time to indulge. The
animated young chef says he also enjoys soccer, volleyball and fishing. On the subject of golf, however, he smiles, covers his face and
shakes his head in frustration. The game makes him nervous because it requires practice. “I am a perfectionist,” he says, and with no
time to practise he hasn’t got good at the game.
Raillo should have lots of company on the court and field as
he and his wife have two daughters: Haley, three years old, and
Julia, three months old.
The proud father remembers going to his grandparents’ house
during his childhood for three days of eating. Everything revolved around food, he says, and that food was simple and fresh
with few ingredients.
He sums up his feelings about the beloved pie simply, with
few words: “All life is pizza!” •