Francesco Crifo is a passionate advocate of pizza. He describes himself as a pizza chef and not a pizza maker and says that despite the abundance of pizza restaurants in Melbourne, there is still a real lack of knowledge about pizza, their bases, flours, toppings, and potential. To this end he has established his pizza academy where he offers a masterclass and an e-book to share the knowledge gained from growing up and working in pizza restaurants in Catania and Milan before coming to Melbourne. Francesco opened Roccella with Bernie Cuteri and Joe and Bruno Ceraso in East Melbourne and happily works there (even on his days off!) with his wife and a largely Italian staff. They opened nine weeks before we went into our first lockdown in Melbourne and had to quickly pivot to takeaway pizza, pasta and salads which was a godsend for East Melbourne locals and continues to be a popular local hangout. Francesco strongly believes that chefs must cook what their diners want and not what they themselves want to cook. He has four different pizza doughs (including an activated charcoal dough made from coconut shells) and he knows his grains and fermentation processes inside out. And the toppings? Francesco is all about balancing flavours and textures, salty and sweet, so that every bite is absolute deliciousness. There's an impressive offering, but just to give you an idea of the thought that goes into his food, Francesco told me that he even has pineapple on one of his pizzas. But not with tomato, ham and cheese. Because the combination of pineapple and tomato, "is not correct." Smoky Ananas has smoked and charred fresh pineapple, fior de latte, 24-month aged prosciutto, Stracciatella, vincotto glaze and cracked pepper. Delicious!
Hello Francesco. Roccella is beautiful. How long have you been here?
Three years. We opened nine weeks before Covid. That was a shock. But we were lucky. When they announced the lockdown, we right away came up with a picnic box, small, big, and takeaway Aperol spritz and takeaway cans of drinks, cocktails. And then, pizza and pasta, it's easy.
So where were you before here?
I had my restaurants, Zero95 in Doncaster Road. That was my first business in Australia. After that we opened Express Pizza Bar in Templestowe for takeaway. The reason we opened that shop is because in 2016 one of the pizza chefs there was also a partner, and he won best pizza in the world, and we couldn't keep up with both the takeaway and the restaurant. So we decided to have a shop just for takeaway. That was before Uber. Then Menulog came into the area and destroyed all the restaurants. We tried Kew, a new concept, a new style of pizza, which didn't work; six slices. Then we opened one in Dromana where we combined everything in one big restaurant. We were very young, and we grew up, made mistakes, and we learned a lot. So, after four years, I think everyone wanted to go on his own way.
Over my life. I have always left a pizzeria because I had nothing to learn. And I always wanted something bigger. Then every time I got something bigger, I would say, oh my God, I knew it. Why did I do that? But then you learn and say, oh, I'm here. I have to make it work. I did a bit of consulting for a year. In the meantime, one of my old customers, who was in food and beverage as well was moving on from a company and said lets do something together. And Roccella was born. But before we got here, we looked at 17 other stores. Before getting into this one in East Melbourne.
You've has places all over the city and down on the peninsula. How do you go about deciding on a location?
There are a lot of points. We have to analyse everything from a business prospect, we analyse how many people, the demographic, which concept we want to do. We decide the menu, we decide the price range. And from there then we decide, okay, we need this demographic. Is this demographic here? You keep ticking all the lists. We would sit in front of the door of the store that we were looking at and count how many people walked past to have an idea how many tickets we can sell during these hours. And when we have an idea of how many tickets and or what would be the spending between breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which is different spending, then you can say, okay, that's what we think we're going to make. Then you work out the rostering in the space. If you have one big room of 200 seats, you need minimum five, six people. But when you break down, like this one in Roccella, in four rooms of 50, you know that, okay, worst case we can open one room of 50 and have one person, so you have a skeleton rostering, and from there you analyse the price, the cost, and if there is profit. In my experience, it can be very fancy and trendy, but it has to be profitable, otherwise, I can't be here. I can't open the door and I can't show the people what I can do. I've been a chef for my whole life, and I cook very well. But these days it takes a lot more than cooking. You have to manage the marketing. You have to manage the service so people can stay. I can make up the best pizza in the world, but if people come in and the service isn't good, they're not going to come back.
That's right. And I think more and more people, especially Melbournians, like the flash and fancy, you know, for that special occasional to go and to try out the new place or whatever, but I think it's nice to have somewhere where you can go and you know the people and you know what to expect and even maybe be recognized and feel like you're part of something. It's such a busy world, especially in the city, it's nice to have somewhere that's perhaps more of a local. So I can see, I see what you're saying.
Speaking of local, we are really focused on local. We know almost all the locals. And we've been here three years, of which two were in lockdown. That actually worked very well for us because the restriction said, oh, you, you can't travel more than five kilometres, so people had to shop local. They got to know us very quickly because there was the option for coffee and pizza. But on the other side, we've been here every day, me and my partners. In the morning, on the floor, there is Bruno. Every night on the floor, there is me always behind the pizza in the kitchen. We are here every day. This is our life. It's not a job. I come here to enjoy. Like this morning it was my day off. My wife was here, kids at school, I could stay home in front of a computer. 10 o'clock comes around and, you know what, if I have to stay home by myself, I'd rather go to the restaurant. I spend a lot of time here because I love it.
Is it open seven days?
Yes. We're never closed. So I came here, but by the time I stepped into the restaurant this morning, four customers, locals, stopped me to ask me what I was doing? Both the husband and wife. Then they tell stories and I love it. I come from a hospo family, my father always had restaurants.
And you're from the south of Italy?
Yes. Sicily. From Catania. My father always had restaurants. If I wanted to see my father, we had to go to the restaurant, because he was there every day even more than now, because now we take time for ourselves, but then they just always worked. So me and my sisters would go to the restaurant. My father didn't want me to get into hospitality because he knew how tough it is. He told me, look, whatever you decide, it's your life, as long as whatever job you do, you do it well, with passion. You do your research, you do your study, and you put all of yourself into it. Because if you do that, you can almost be sure that you will achieve good things. I always had that in my mind, if I do something, as my father taught me, I have to do it well. And I did it. At 14 years old I was a delivery driver for a pizza shop. By 16, I was behind the pizza oven. By 17, I left school and went full-time in pizza.
Then I was 18, 19 and in a restaurant, I met my wife. She was on the floor. I was on the pizza She was 18 like me and had already done four years in hospitality. So she has also been all her life in hospitality. We have always been in hospitality. Then we moved to Milan, because my father opened a restaurant in Milan, and he called me to come and help him. In two, three years, we were already famous for pizza in. Then I got into something bigger. And I started studying and researching pizza. Why is this pizza like this? What about if I changed this flour? Back then there were just a few pizza makers into researching something new, the pioneers of changing the formula of pizza. And already back then, I used to buy books and I was really into learning more. Then I got into an association called Fedrazione Italiana de Pizzaiola, where they had a school to teach other pizza makers, to master new styles or teach people from scratch about becoming a pizza maker. I became an instructor for them and taught a lot of pizza makers. And that taught me that you can have different people in front of you and you have to explain and make it easy, step by step to pass on the passion, but also the knowledge. Then I met a guy from Melbourne, 400 Gradi Johnny at the Pizza World Championship. He met me and he told me I had to go with him to Melbourne because he was opening all these venues. So I came to Melbourne with all the family, moved with two kids.
What a big move, especially with family in Milan.
Yes, and to be honest, in Milan, back then, after five years, I already had a name. I was well known in the pizza game. I had my skill, my experience, even if I was 25 years old. But again, I wanted a bigger challenge. I needed this challenge. So I came in Melbourne, worked for Johnny. I wasnt very happy because there was not much creativity. I did big numbers and I learned a lot of processes because Melbourne is really process focused in the kitchen. In Italy, there is more creativity, but we had a lot of labour, the labour is different.
The cost of the labour is different. In Italy, we don't care much because you can have a lot of skilled people and they share the jobs, whereas here you have to be very careful with the labour. So you reduce the labour and you have more processes. I wasnt happy. I thought, you know what, I really want to do something by myself. I had a few people wanted to do something, builders, developers. We started Zero95 in 2015 and that was very successful straightaway after three years, as I said with the award and the television, the magazines. We were really very famous pizza makers. I've been very lucky since the start, because in 3, 4, 5 years I knew with all the Italian community, all the Italian restaurateurs.
With Roccella, I think I took it to another level because you can see the quality of the fit out. And we have a big kitchen. We do big numbers, we do functions, we do the food crowd and this is my strength. But back when I was at Gradi, I saw there something was missing in the market for pizza. I opened Zero95 and I was right. Then in the last few years, I think there was another need in the market, which is the knowledge in pizza. We got stuck into only one style of pizza. I see people opening pizzerias every week and they're all just the same. Maybe they had pizzas in some other pizza shop, they loved it. They watch YouTube and think the recipe is very easy. They find a pizza maker and do Napoletana style. It is very trendy. But they don't know why they're doing it, which flour to use, or if they change the flour, what happens? Is it really the right style for the demographic that you have? Because you know, you can have a Napoletana style, which is very soft, and people here say soggy. So depending on the demographic that you have, they might not like it. They might prefer a Roman style, which is thin and crunchier. So you really need to study. It's not about what you like. You have to offer the style that your demographic wants. I offer all the styles to make everyone happy. I have four different pizza doughs. I have the normal sour dough with double zero, big crust, more Napoletana style. I have the Roman style. It's very thin very crunchy.
So it holds up and you don't have fold it over?
No. You can't fold it over. We make that one with the ancient grain; wholemeal. We have the black charcoal, black pizza sourdough with black charcoal inside. We did it for a special and it went crazy. Then we have the gluten free, which I have specialized in for the last 10 years because my wife is celiac. Then we have the special of the month where we play a lot on creating pizza dough with different grains. We play with different fermentation. Once we did dough with water fermented from capsicum. No yeast, just the fermentation of the water.
So how do you come up with things like that?
That's the thing. I want to put the knowledge out there and say, okay, pizza is not just a pizza; there are different pizza styles. There are so many videos out there on YouTube, saying now we use sourdough, or we use biga, which is a preferment dough. Or we have a big crust; if you have a big crust, the pizza is good, if you use a lot of water, the pizza is good. Don't use too much yeast, otherwise the pizza is not good. It's not true. I mean, about yeast, a baker makes the bread in three, four hours. I've never seen anyone get sick from bread. So what's the difference in pizza if they put in more yeast?
The biga, the sourdough style, they have a pH you know, it's a microorganism that you need to control, you need to feed, and you have to always have the same pH, otherwise it can be very dangerous for you, if the pH goes above the 5 or 6 pH. People go just for trend, or they really know what they're doing. And don't get me wrong, I see many pizza places and they're busy and good for them. But do they really know what they're doing? If they change the flour, can they make the same product? That's why I came up with my pizza academy, which is my website where I teach people. They can have a consulting 1 on 1. They can have a masterclass. I do a lot of pizza masterclasses here at the restaurant, so I can pass on this knowledge and say, hey guys, look, pizza is something serious. It's not just flour. Because, which flour? Zero, double zero, wholemeal.
You can create anything you want as long you have the knowledge and also the creativity to put things together. Then there are no limits. A chef has no limits. He needs to know and have knowledge about the raw ingredient. Then the raw ingredient can become anything he wants. And that’s what I think I am; I’m a pizza chef, not a pizza maker. I’m a pizza chef because I put a lot of time into research and study and then I create anything I want. ~ Francesco Crifo, Roccella
What about this idea of proving for a certain length of time? How does that fit into what you do? You know, like 48 hours.
That's another thing that I hate. It's not true. Flour has a different strength. Different strength means different proteins. The more proteins, the stronger the flour, the stronger the flour, the more water, the longer the time needed to prove to make it easier to digest those proteins. If I use a strong flour and I prove for two hours, you can't digest it. It's not for the yeast. It's because of the protein. If I give you a very weak flour two, three hours is fine. You need to have a balance. What is the difference is that the weak flour doesn't have a lot of proteins, which is gluten, which means that after 10 hours you can't use it anymore. It will be very weak, so when you stretch it will break. Yeah. On the other side, if you use a strong flour, and you don't give it enough time, it will be very hard to stretch because it's too tight, the gluten is too. We need to find a balance. Of course, depending on how much time I have for service, the space that I have in cool room, if I have to make a strong flour four days in advance for a week cycle, I have to have a lot of space in the cool room because I always have to think in advance three, four days in advance. If I don't have a lot of space, I'll go for a weak or for a medium weak flour, which I can prove for 24 hours. Or if I don't have space at all, I can go for the morning, pizza door for the night. The difference is that with a fermentation, so the longer you let it ferment, the more flavour it has. But it is all about how you manage it. These days people talk about high hydration. They ask, how much hydration do you use, because I use 80 – 90% of water, which means it is easy to digest. No, because the amount of water you're putting in then needs time to evaporate. And if you're cooking a Napoletana style, which he cooks in 92 seconds, the water will not have time to evaporate and it will be a very wet pizza. There are a lot of technical things that I can go on about for hours.
And what about toppings? Are you strict about toppings as well?
Not at all. In fact, on my menu you can see a pineapple pizza.
I did read that somewhere. Or did you make a comment about pineapple pizza on your Instagram? I don't like pineapple on pizza.
I have to be open minded because, Im a chef. I can't have restrictions.
No, that's right. It can't be about what you want.
That's right. So we have pineapple, but my way, and I'm not the only one. In Italy, there are already famous pizza chefs who are implementing pineapple in the menu. Of course, they put the twist. My twist here is we get the pineapple, the yellow one, which is very sweet. We roast it in the oven, so completely roasted outside, very juicy inside. We cut it in slices. We take all the juice from the pineapple and mix it with liquid smoke, and we let them marinate for a few days, so we have that sweetness, but it is also smoky. We use a white base with cheese. And then after cooking we put on the San Daniela prosciutto, which gives it a little bit of saltiness and Stracciatella cheese. Then a reduction of balsamic and smoky liquid on top and black pepper. It is a good balance. I said to myself, okay, I'm a chef. I will be creative. I'm not going to put tomato and cheese with ham and pineapple, because for me it's not correct. You can't have tomato and pineapple because you are putting two things together that don't go together.
What about things like pumpkin?
We use pumpkin. We steam the pumpkin with a few herbs and black pepper and then we make a cream and use it as a spread on the pizza. Then we use rocket, pine nuts, goats cheese, pancetta.
Delicious. Do you still eat a lot of pizza?
Every day? I know it's hard to believe. I eat pizza every day. Sometimes, even if I don't eat a full pizza because I had my meal. But then during the shift I see some pizza and I go, oh my God, I love the pizza. You know what, make one for me. I just like it. It is important for me that I have to be excited about every pizza I take it out. Otherwise, my belief is that pizza dough is not good. Put it away. Well use a new one. I need to be excited because I think if I get excited, then I will have the same reaction from the customer.
And do you change the menu very often?
We don't change the pizza menu a lot. But we do a lot of specials. Recently we started to use a lot of different grains. Like from Tuerong Farm on the Peninsula. Jason is an amazing guy, passionate about grains. Then we got a farm, Woodstock in New South Wales. Lovely family, young family, husband and wife, and I think one or two kids. And they grow organic grain. And they mill it. They only have one stone mill, so very small production. But we also started to introduce different pizza styles. For example, the double crunch, which is from a famous pizza chef in Italy, basically a filled pizza, but very crunchy. We use different fermentation; we can use preferment biga, preferment poolish. We can use a sour starter, we can use fermented water. The last few times we did a padellino style, which is from Turin in North Italy. This dough rises in a padellino, which is a round tray. And then we steam it to give it a sponginess, and then we finish it in the oven, so it is crunchy on the outside. Even if its a small pizza bowl, it will be thick, big. We cut it into six slices, and on top we put different toppings, for example, the last two we did, we steam fried and cooked in the oven with saffron. Then as a topping we used polenta and cheese cream, slow cooked ossobuco, gremolada, and polenta chips on top. It was inspired by Milan, so ossobuco and polenta and saffron. The one we are doing this week is my version of a hot cross bun. Its a chocolate padellino style, so very spongy and thick chocolate dough and topped with mascarpone, candied orange, cinnamon, orange gel and cacao powder. It's my version of an Italian hot cross bun.
Wow. That's great.
We love to play around with different fermentation, different styles, because that's what happened in Italy. There is no one style. You can create anything you want as long you have the knowledge and also the creativity to put things together. Then there are no limits. A chef has no limits. He needs to know and have knowledge about the raw ingredient.Then the raw ingredient can become anything he wants. And that's what I think I am; I'm a pizza chef, not a pizza maker. I'm a pizza chef because I put a lot of time into research and study and then I create anything I want.
I love that. Thank you.
Roccella, 158 Clarendon Street, East Melbourne