All about our new Marana Forni pizza oven at Vesuvio
Dear Readers – My name is Gian Antonio Pepe. I am the youngest son in the Pepe Family, responsible for running the day-to-day of our restaurants and bakeries, with lots of help.
Over the past few years you haven’t heard much from us on our blog, but I plan on writing to you more. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be sending—restaurant updates, coupons, event invites—but I promise to make it worth your time.
In our first attempt at this blog revamp, I’d like to tell you more about our new pizza oven!
The story starts ten years ago.
When my brother and I returned from VPN Pizza Training in Napoli, we were excited to revamp our dough recipe and put our new skills to use. The pizza was very good, but it wasn’t quite the same as what we’d learned to make in Italy.
The reason, we soon found out, was our oven.
It was built approximately 40 years ago, and the insulation wasn’t right, so it never really got hot enough. The temperature maxed out at around 600 degrees Fahrenheit, when you really want something closer to 800 degrees for proper Neapolitan style pies.
So, after years of lobbying my father, Chef Pèpe, he caved and agreed to buy a new oven from Marana Forni.
Earlier this month our oven arrived in pieces from Italy, by way of Miami.
Then we had to wait to install it.
Last week Pasquale and Felippo came from Italy came and stayed three nights in Carmel to help with the install.
Here is a picture of Carlos and I making one of the first Margherita pizzas out of our new toy.
The oven uses a combination of gas and wood. The gas gives it a more consistent temperature, and the wood is for flavor. Also, it spins! So the pizza cooks evenly on all sides, which gives our pizzaioli more time to focus on their craft.
We’ve had to wait five days to “cure” the oven before we can use it, and we are excited to “go live” with it tonight at Vesuvio.
