A trip to Napoli and a brush with the law lead up Brigantessa's opening

STOKED: Joe Cicala is ready to fire up the wood-burning oven at Brigantessa.
Neal Santos

There are plenty of passionate pizza people out there, but for chef Joe Cicala of Le Virtu and the soon-to-open Brigantessa, the fervor for authentic Neapolitan pies goes much further. When Cicala and the Le Virtu crew were hashing out plans for their second Passyunk Avenue spot, there was no question that he was going to go for VPN (Verace Pizza Napoletana) certification, a designation given to pizzerias by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN) based, of course, in Napoli. 

Cicala says there are two options to get the certification.

“You could go to California and take the three-day course, but what can you learn in three days? The other option was a 10-day course in Napoli, and I wanted to do that for a couple of reasons. It’s the birthplace of pizza and it was a more intensive course. I wanted to learn the information and not just get the certification.”

What he got was in-depth VPN training, with four hours of pizza theory in the morning and another four hours of practical — hands-on pizza making — in the afternoon. 

“The most important thing to understand about the VPN is that it’s not a mark of quality. It’s [about] the pizzaiolo, or pizza maker,” explains Cicala, “It’s the hand that makes the pizza a good pizza. What they do is they regulate how the pizza is made and what ingredients are used. Mostly they’re concerned about the dough preparation. The ingredients are water, flour, yeast and salt.”

Cicala was one of only three non-Italian students in the class, and language was a bit of an issue. Though he speaks textbook Italian, these classes were taught in a Neapolitan dialect. 

“The first thing that they tell you on the first day is that there is no recipe and you’re like, ‘Oh great, what did I sign on for?’” 

At the AVPN, the endgame is to create a dough that is malleable, in keeping with surrounding elements. It means taking into consideration humidity, air pressure and elevation, to craft an ideal pizza base. 

On the final day of the course, Cicala and his pizza-making classmates were given a written exam and asked to make marinara and margherita pies in front of a board of executives. Cicala passed with the highest grade in the class, a 67. “In the States, that would be failing, but over there the theory is that only master pizzaioli would test into the 90s.”

Passing the pizza training with flying colors is all well and good, but Cicala’s time in Napoli wasn’t all San Marzano-topped slices and mozzarella dreams. 

Part of the class included staging at a pizzeria. Cicala was assigned to Figlia del Presidente, a widely known shop that specializes in pizza fritta (double-layered, deep-fried pizza). “It was a lot of fun. You’re hanging out with a bunch of Neapolitans wisecracking. The atmosphere in the kitchen is always the same no matter where you are.”

Around midnight, after finishing his first shift, Cicala headed to the bus stop as he made his way back to his hotel. That was when he spied the carabinieri or Italian military police headed his way. 

“I was dressed like a pizzaiolo, in white from head to toe with the handkerchief and all of that bullshit that they make you do. Italy loves uniforms,” Cicala recalled. 

The carabinieri tend to haunt bus stops and train stations in search of illegal immigrants, sussing out who’s who by checking documents. That morning, Cicala had been running behind and left his passport at his hotel. This was not good news for the carabinieri or Cicala. 

With no documents to prove that he was, in fact, in Napoli to master the art of Neapolitan pizza, Cicala was arrested and handcuffed to a park bench. 

Cicala did his best to explain that he was in school, but when the carabinieri called to verify his story no one answered. Given that it was 1 a.m., that makes perfect sense. Then they called the pizzeria where he had just finished his first shift, and again there was trouble. Strike three came when the carabinieri called the hotel and the person at the front desk said there was no one by the name of Joe Cicala staying there. (Cicala had registered under his full legal name, Thomas Joseph Cicala.) 

After nearly an hour of sweating, with visions of being locked up in an Italian prison, Cicala remembered that he had his American driver’s license in his back pocket. 

“Forty-five minutes of my life were gone, but eventually it was straightened out and they let me go with a lecture about how I should always have my passport on me,” he says.

So that’s the story of how Cicala got schooled in the art of Verace Pizza Neapolitana as well as in Italian law. 

Things back home are going much more smoothly. Brigantessa (1520 E. Passayunk Ave.), is housed in a gorgeous building overlooking the Singing Fountain and is slated to open at the beginning of September.

He installed a custom-made, Italian, wood-fired oven, where he’s going to be making traditional Neapolitan pizzas along with some fun pies like ’nduja (a spicy, spreadable sausage) with ricotta and fermented chiles. 

But Brigantessa isn’t strictly a pizzeria. Cicala calls it a combination pizzeria-birreria-enoteca-forneria, or, in layman’s terms a place to get an awesome selection of antipasti, pastas, pizzas, wood-fired mains and desserts. 

But pizza is a pretty serious part of the equation and Cicala has no hard feelings toward Italian officals. “Once we’re in operation, we’re going to have the guys from Napoli come and certify the restaurant,” he says.