From New York to Naples in 90 seconds with Simone Falco’s pizza

Since 2018 Simò Pizza has brought Italy to New York with two locations opened. The newest, in the heart of Greenwich Village, is designed by renowned architect Büro Koray Duman, who has chosen to make the entire kitchen, including the two Neapolis ovens, the focal point around which the whole restaurant concept develops. Simone Falco is the leader of this gear, a former engineer converted to Pizza Chef, now a successful entrepreneur, whom we interviewed in a pleasant transoceanic chat.

Tell us about your adventure in New York: how did all start?
I arrived in the US thanks to Rossopomodoro, opening the first Eataly in New York in 2010 and with whom I still collaborate as head of the America division. Simò Pizza my concept of fast pizzeria is born later, in 2018: same product, same quality, same quantity, same ingredients but at a lower price, obtained by saving on service. Here, in fact, you will not find very elegant tables, set with tall glasses for example, but rather a true “Neapolitan trattoria” atmosphere. In a city like New York, a margherita can cost as much as $ 24, a super high price, while ours it’s $ 10: it’s not the same price as Naples, but still much lower than the average.
With Simò Pizza we tried to recreate the concept of a Neapolitan kiosk: inside you can see the whole production part, where we also find two Neapolis, with a splendid dehors outside. The ovens are the focal point and people from outside can see all the bustle of the operators at work.

Other than pizza, what do you bake with Neapolis?
The two Neapolis 6 are our “temple“: they are the only cooking source in Simò Pizza so, in addition to Neapolitan pizza, we also cook meatballs, gnocchi alla Sorrentina and many of the toppings of our pizzas… they are giving us amazing results!
We cook the meatballs at 220°C, we take them out the oven and then “braise” them in the tomato sauce, they need a long cooking, in order to make them succulent. Generally Neapolitan meatballs are fried first and then sautéed in the sauce, but we also do this first cooking of the meat in the oven. The same goes for our gnocco alla Sorrentina finished with Neapolis: we put gnocchi with mozzarella in a cast iron pan inside the oven at high temperatures to get the right browning on the surface.
While for pizza we set the oven at 450°C, 9 top and 5 deck, adjusting during baking if needed: for very intense shifts, for example, we slightly increase the power of the deck.
In summer, when the demand for bruschetta and panzanella rises, the leftover pizza dough is “rolled” into bread and baked in the morning with the oven switched off, because we still find Neapolis at 270°C – 280°C from previous service. Therefore, we can bake bread just by closing the oven door, as it helps us to get the right moisture for the oven spring.

Thanks to your role, you are able to see Neapolis from a double point of view, both with entrepreneur and pizza chef’s eyes: what is the main advantage in using it
Mine was not a canonical career: for a few years I studied, reaching my PhD in electrical engineering, then I joined Rossopomodoro. At a certain point I thought about creating a “small” place, low cost and replicable. Having worked with a wood fired oven for many years, I was well aware of all the problems that come with it, especially here in America where it is not very “swallowed”. Therefore, I inquired about Moretti Forni products and I realized that I was dealing with specialists in the sector.
I chose Neapolis because it always guarantees the same baking quality, simplifying baking process as it requires less manpower, as there is no need to check the pizzas or turn them as it bakes evenly. Above all for me it was important to find an electric oven that could reach those temperatures and managed to keep them, because we make 400 pizzas per day: making 10 is easy but when you get to our numbers…
With wood fired ovens you just need to put more wood and you are ok, with electric ones, however, the recovery point worried me, but Neapolis recovers very quickly, letting us bake more pizzas. We own two because we hope to greatly exceed the current numbers and we use them both at full capacity.
Our project is to open other stores and with a vapour extraction that in US is defined “type 2”, meaning it is sufficient that the hot air flow is extracted and directed simply on one side of the street, Neapolis allows us to open in airports, stations and in all those places where the old wood fired oven vent, with all fire prevention problems, would be unthinkable. This was the thinking I made as an engineer, combined with the fact that the quality of the product is excellent.

On this comparison with wood-fired oven It is also worth making another consideration: the wood, burning, produces moisture that is absorbed by pizza. In Italy we are used to it, while abroad everyone says that Neapolitan pizza is too wet, “soggy” for Americans. But with electric heat, the pizza maintains the right moisture level, being suitable also for delivery, without changing the dough.
Neapolitan pizza baked in a wood oven, on the other hand, when placed in the take-away box arrives at destination losing many of its characteristics. During transport the dough softens, the mozzarella moves around, the sauce may slip off, etc. To get around this obstacle, many are forced to add sugar or oil to the dough, so that the base stays crunchier. Our pizza, however, is only made with flour, water, yeast, salt and Neapolis perfect heat.

Back to pizza, do you use particular toppings or do you stick to the great classics?
We care a lot about the ingredients we use for our products: flour, tomato, mozzarella are all Italian and of the highest quality. All of our pizzas are made with buffalo mozzarella and we work with big brands for cured meats. Our toppings are the classic ones. The only thing a little bit different, also the most popular, is the cacio e pepe pizza, in which we use a DOP pecorino romano cheese, buffalo mozzarella and pepper: very simple yet offering the palate that cacio e pepe spaghetti sensation.

What do “90 seconds” of your payoff refer to?
“90 seconds” has more meanings: the promise that the experience with us will be fast with “no frills”, the official baking time reported by the Neapolitan pizza guideline and the time for our pizza to be “crispy but not too crunchy “.
When I tell local journalists, they are incredulous, because it takes 7-8 minutes to bake American pizza, so I enjoy playing with them, asking to time the baking and very often we take out the pizzas in 70-80 seconds already.

Photo Credits Francesco Sapienza