A Q&A with Palermo’s Pizza’s Nick Fallucca
Nick Fallucca serves as Chief Product & Innovation Officer at Palermo’s Pizza. He worked to help develop pinsa crusts at Palermo. Pinsa is rising as a trending pizza style, Nick answered questions about the pizza style and Palermo’s pinsa crusts.
Q: What is Pinsa?
Pinsa is a Roman-style flatbread — and by Roman style, it originated in Rome, Italy. It is a combination of flour – rice and soy, and the rice and the soy are at very low level, but it helps provide some really great texture inside. And then it is aged anywhere from 24 to 48 hours. And lastly, it’s a very high hydration product. So, in our case, 85% hydration. The combination of high hydration and the long ferment, and then the different flours give it a really light, fluffy texture. When you’re working with this product, it’s a very wet, sticky dough. That’s what gives it those beautiful air pockets inside and nice white crisp bottom, as well.
Q: How does pinsa differentiates itself from other pizza styles?
I would say the cell structure. The cell structure is so fluffy and it’s so light that it really eats like no other pizza. Focaccia is one that you could compare it to. But focaccia is dense. This is not dense. It looks like it’s going to be this big filling product, but it’s so light and airy, and then that bottom crunch is so crispy. The very bottom crust on it is incredibly light and tender.
Q: What’s unique about your pinsa?
We’re the first company in North America to do this at scale. Because of the nature of the dough, the aging 24 hours, and having a wood -ired oven, those are things that you can do in your restaurant, for sure, but on a large industrial scale and our consistency is what really makes it unique.
Q: What were the deciding factors in in bringing this product to market?
When my dad and uncle were in Italy, and myself as well. We were seeing these products that were out in the marketplace, and every pizzeria was starting to have these pinsas. When we ate it, we just fell in love with it. And between the texture and the flavor and the lightness, additionally, you don’t feel full after eating it because of the lightness of it and the airiness. And we just fell in love with it… Then, from our manufacturing line, we saw there was the need to have a high hydration, 24-hour dough. That’s what really we pride ourselves on this line. Yes, pizza is a huge, a huge market we think is going to be coming up, but more so the ability, again, to do high hydration, 24-hour wood-fired product is, I think, what really makes it special.
Q: How can you use pinsa across the menu?
We made a panzanella salad with it. Recently, instead of biscuits and gravy, we did a pizza and gravy the other morning, and that was fantastic. It was beautiful. About this line is that it doesn’t just make pizza crust. It makes buns and breads. So, we’ve taken our pizza buns, and we’ve cut them diagonally and made ice cream sandwiches with them. We were just at the private label show this week, and we made a blueberry cobbler and put that on top of the pinsa crust. And that was to die for. We’ve done lemon curd, where we pipe some curd into the crust after it comes out of the oven. It’s so flexible and literally for every part of your menu. I love that.
Q: What has been your role with the pinsa?
My team leads the creation of what’s next and seeking out new trends and testing with consumers but also talking to our customers. And I think what we see in general is that the trends of Europe are further ahead than what we’re seeing in the States. And so, we’ll see it go from Europe to higher end restaurants, or independents, and then eventually you’ll go into the food service world. But for us, we like to get ahead of it and bring these trends to market so that we’re the ones who can actually bring it to the world of food service, plus retail. And so, my team is always scouring the menus and restaurants to see what’s next, because if we just go in the grocery store and shop, we’ll never be happy. We have to really look at what’s being served in independent restaurants and international.
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