The revamped menu at la Piazza Hyatt brings the flavours of the Italian countryside to your table. By Ankita Jain
There is something about the rusticity and a home-grown comfort of Italian food that makes you fall in love with it. Hyatt Regency Delhi’s iconic la Piazza freeze-frames the old Italian café in a contemporary business traveller way. The arched beams and bricks transport you to the hinterland of Italy while the impressive food and the well-stocked cellar make it one of the topmost restaurants to dine in the city. The 22-year-old iconic restaurant has recently added 16 new pizzas to its menu. A major menu overhaul is always a landmark time in the history of a restaurant. It almost lets you a peek inside the head of the chef. And this time Executive Chef Ivan Chieregatti, with specialist Ciro Sorrentino in tow, has worked on clean-cut flavours. Their menu had variety as well as logic.
While Indians consider a thick and thin crust pan pizza as the only two hits, the Italians would tell you that the only types of dough are Italian and non-Italian! “In Italy, we are thinking of making a law about pizza,” Chef Ciro said. “It must be made in a wood oven, with a specific quantity of flour, yeast and water. Only then can it be called ‘pizza’.” Although, almost everywhere else in the world, people grow up on an incidental flour base, the big cheeses bubbling with mozzarella, piled high with salami and drowned in sauces, chef Ciro feels that’s an insult to the fluffy flatbread, which gives heft, texture and flavour. “It’s time for pizza to return to its roots. It’s very traditional food, very homely. The poor eat it a lot because it uses fresh, easily available ingredients. All that you need to make a good pizza is mozzarella and a fresh tomato sauce.” And, of course, the irreplaceable Italian wood fire oven. “It’s 300 degrees inside,” he added, walking around the red brick oven, and pointing into its gaping, fiery interior, kept alive by small crackling logs. “Real pizza needs to taste of smoke, of wood, not sauces.”
We were welcomed with a bread basket (rolls, oven-fresh loaves) accompanied with carrots, olives and a medley of sweet mango in a sauce we couldn’t guess. We began our meal with a verdure and a glass of wine. With its thin base, crisp crust toasted along with the mozzarella melting in mouth, it was a perfect treat for vegetarians with extra virgin olive oil imported from the soil of Italy. The best part of the pizza was though it looked heavy, topped with assorted mushrooms and onions, it sat extremely light on the stomach. la Piazza is also one of the first restaurants to be known to have imported Italian products as well as introduced customers to little known Italian wines back then.
For the non-vegetarian choices, the chef suggested Cinque stagioni. Appearing in the shape of a star fish, this pizza was a complete delight to the eye. But then there was more to it, every slice catered to a new flavour altogether. Starting from assorted sea food to a herb infused oil and delectable cuts, including salami Milano, the delectably smoked Parma ham and the spicy salami along with some mozzarella cheese, this one had all the goodies going in. We polished off our meals with a traditional tiramisu which was absolute bliss. With stomachs overloaded, Chef Ciro dished out another killer, sweet pizza spread with custard cream and topped with cherry compote and mint. The sweetness of compote overpowered the custard flavour. So, next time you miss the scenic beauty and slow life of the Italian countryside, you know where to head to.