About two months ago, the Klopizza bar opened in Nova Gradiška, at the address Slavonskih graničara 1, right next to the central town square. Neapolitan pizza (but of course not only that) also came to that beautiful little Posavina-Slavonian town located exactly halfway between Osijek and Zagreb.
Behind this catering venture is the Kajtazi family, which has been engaged in baking in Nova Gradiška since 1988, and confectionery since 2008. And it was their pastry shop Malina that closed its doors on November 29 last year, only to become a Klopizza bar eight days later that offers great pizzas and burgers, but in that story there were also cakes, which maintained the continuity with Malina. Their menu consists of 9 types of pizza, 9 types of burgers. In the category of grilled dishes, they left kebabs in S, M and L variants and a pub burger, which is a great move because it always goes well, and on the example of neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, we saw how kebabs defeated Mc Donalds. In the category "toothpicks" there are two types of breakfast and five types of sandwiches, under this category the following text is proudly displayed: "All the ingredients in the pizza have a geographical origin. The flour we use is obtained from wheat that grows at the foot of the volcano. The dough is made with a negligible amount of yeast and is therefore light and digestible like no other dough, i.e. flour. The stone on which we bake pizzas and flatbreads is obtained by special processing of volcanic stone." Intriguing enough to write a text about this restaurant.
My interlocutor was Matteo Kajtazi, and he told us the following about how everything started:
- We have always wanted to make pizzas, unusual for this climate. I've tasted pizza at hundreds of different places and it was more or less a copy paste scheme. In OʼHara, I tried napolitana for the first time, on their recommendation they send me to Frankoʼs and there I get a full vision, a full picture. I've always liked knocking in general; burgers have always been a must-have item, but pizzas have always been a bit more intriguing. Then there was a lot of research, rummaging, digging, contacting, call this one, call that one, google, search, ask... They reject you, you give up, you forget, you go back to the bakery and try to make a pizza on your own in the bakery, and then you realize that this is not it. Then I found out about type 00 flour used by premium pizzerias.
Photo: Mario Jukić
Mateo reveals to us that the distributors "saved the matter": - then we came into contact with distributors of Italian food products in the Republic of Croatia, who provided us with education. That education was fascinating because then I realized that as much as I knew about pizza, there was so much I didn't know, and yet some of the things they pointed out to me I knew because I was engaged in baking.
Doing baking in the family bakery was a good background and Matteo emphasizes that this is why he and the other employees easily mastered the pizza education., and that he did not have to hire a new pizza master like most others who opened Neapolitan pizzerias.
- If there was no baking experience, it would have been much more difficult. And we try to make that pizza and then I realize that it's not just that. The dough is only one part of the story, i.e. the job, and quality mozzarella, pelate and ham are also needed if we are talking about a classic mixed pizza. For example, I didn't like eating margherita, but when I tried real napolitana, I completely changed my mind. Mozzarella is made from cow's or bison's milk from southern Italy. Each of these foods is from Campania or Sicily, and they are produced by families that have a centuries-old tradition in the production of these foods. These producers have continuity, the business is inherited from generation to generation and this can be compared with craft breweries in Bavaria. Each of them deals with the production of one ingredient, the one who makes pelata does not get involved in the production of pizza mushrooms and that's how it works. Pizza ham is also very important, what is usually bought in a standard store is actually packaged pate in a solid state. It must be a cooked or marinated piece of prosciutto. It must not be too salty, because it absorbs all the water on the tomato and takes on all the flavor. Mozzarella must have a neutral milk taste, must be from a cow in a certain region that grazes a certain type of grass. The tomato must be San Marzano, otherwise the ham will be lost in the acid, etc. There are hundreds of items. In the end, this Neapolitan pizza is completely different from others, lighter, and this can be best sublimated with the following sentence: you will recognize that it is a Neapolitan pizza if you eat one, and you have room for another, and you are full!
Matteo emphasizes that their suppliers guarantee the continuity of the supply of raw materials, that they never use substitute ingredients: – if by some strange combination of circumstances we don't have pepperoni this week, we don't have pepperoni pizzas that week.
As already stated at the beginning of the text, wheat for flour grows at the foot of a volcano, on specific warm, black soil, easily digestible and full of protein - 14 grams of protein per 100 grams of flour. When asked if there is anything homemade in their pizzas, Matteo answers like a cannon: – only basil from Kaufland!
