Sophia Loren in Florence: review of a disappointment
review
Review of Sophia Loren in Florence: the menu, prices, pizzas and our opinions on the pizzeria dedicated to the muse of cinema.
There’s a Sophia Loren with Francesco Martuccimore physically present inside the beautiful open kitchens of one of the controversial restaurants-pizzerias in Florence. And there is a Sophia Loren without Francesco Martucci, rightly engaged in his award-winning pizzeria “I Masanielli” in Caserta. Epperò is with the second that we Florentines have to deal with.
The grand opening of 2020 in Via dei Brunelleschi has two faces that deserve two separate (and distinctly different) reviews: the first with an excellent judgment, the second with an inevitable insufficiency. Or a political six given by factors far from pizza, if you prefer. Which then represents in any case a disappointment.
The environment
Between Piazza del Duomo and Piazza della Repubblica, in the airy spaces that once belonged to UniCredit: this is where the Neapolitan company Dream food decided to inaugurate his first Sophia Loren (who has nothing to do with the Muse of cinema, if not purely commercial), launching a world-class project that has already brought him to Milan and will soon arrive also in Naples, Dubai, Miami, Hong Kong and Shanghai. To understand the sumptuousness and ambitions of the brand, it is enough to take a quick tour of the Florentine location, arranged on three floors and also overlooking the historic arcades outside. An elegant and evocative venue that extends over over 1,500 square meters and boasts 270 seats, two professional kitchens and two ovens, with the aim of offering a 360 ° proposal between catering, bar, café, pastry shop and cocktail & wine bar.
Service
The opulence and above all the size of such a large restaurant is necessary for a large and attentive staff to the needs of the many guests, Italians and foreigners, who visit it every day almost hypnotized by its bewitching luminous signs. The scarce supply of this delicate historical period can be an alibi to consider, but – albeit with significant improvements compared to the last time we had it – Sophia Loren still lacks hospitality, speed of response and experience in interacting with diners. Do not necessarily ask for the heat of a ten-seater pizzeria (it would be impossible to take this concept back to such a large structure), but at least that the pizzas are brought at the same time and not separately. Whether you ask the customer immediately, as soon as he is seated, if he wants water, still or sparkling. And other missing bases of room service that would make even the least pretentious tourist impatient.
The menu
Abundance. Criticism (from the Greek verb κρίνωand therefore to be understood as an objective judgment) in this case it is absolutely positive. Sophia Loren is a tribute to Neapolitan cuisine and all-round Campanianot limiting itself to pizzas at all (there are 17 pizzas on the menu), but also offering appetizers, fried Neapolitan style (Montanare, Crocchè, Arancini, Frittatine …), first courses (such as Mixed Pasta and peas, Neapolitan Lasagna and Spaghetti with Clams), meat and fish main courses (such as Sausage and beans, Meatballs with sauce, Seppe and stewed peas) and an interesting selection of buffalo mozzarella.
High quality products and ingredients, which together with the names of the protagonists who worked on the opening (the aforementioned Martucci for pizzas, chef Gennarino Esposito for cooking, pastry chef Carmine di Donna for pastry) and its position in nothing short of central justify the prices clearly above average. The wine and craft beer list is also very valid, especially for the convincing review of national wines (divided by region) which tells of many certainties, and even some surprises, of the Italian panorama.
Pizza
But let’s get to the focal point of our analysis: Pizza. That there are differences between those baked by Sophia Loren with Francesco Martucci on site and those without is plausible and in its own way also understandable. First of all because it is a consultancy and not a fixed collaboration, despite the fact that the pizza menu expressly indicates “Francesco Martucci’s Pizza” (unlike the kitchen menu and the pastry menu). Second, because in pizza perhaps even more than in any other branch of the kitchen, the artist’s hand and his signature franchising touch, the romantic one that not even in pizza, ugly copies and various chains will be able to completely emulate.
Having said that, it was a disappointment for us to try the “perfect pizza” first (at press events with Martucci present) and then a very distant imitation of it (obviously without Martucci). Two pizzas with the same soul, the same ingredients and – we do not doubt it – also the same passion at the base, but in the results really far, too far from each other. And so there “5 consistencies of onion” (in cream, fermented, crunchy, burnt and onion mayonnaise with fiordilatte, EVO oil and basil), the closest thing to the starred cuisine we have ever eaten in terms of pizza to date, it has become a pizza that is difficult to digest, disharmonious and rubbery traits in its declared Neapolitan style. A distance that has even widened in the case of “Future of Marinara” (double cooking pizza, fried at 180 ° and baked at 400 °, with roasted tomato cream, wild garlic pesto, capers, olives caiazzane, oregano out of cooking, anchovies from Trapani): amazing the one prepared long ago by Martucci, tremendously greasy and consequently heavy the one tried and tested by customers in recent months. Not to mention the Genoese Montanara that preceded the pizzas, with so much oil inside the dough that you can fill in a glass (in the face of the seed oil crisis!).
me sweet
The dessert menu tells the story of Campania and boasts top quality ingredients, but this too – like the pizzas – convinces the eyes of the palate much more. “Lemon delight”for example, it is a dessert totally deprived of the acidity of lemon, as well as of its traditional sweetness and the contrast of textures that distinguish it, confirming at the same time what Sophia Loren could be (one of the best pizzerias in Florence) and what unfortunately it is today.
Opinion
restaurants
pizzerias
A real shame, the capital “P” is intentional. For the potential that Sophia Loren should in her ropes. For having “broken down” the Muse of Italian cinema. For the high prices, which more than congruent with a completely different service and with a pizza that does not reappear during the night. More generally, for failing to exploit the bases that three reference points of Italian catering (starting with one of the sacred monsters of pizza such as Francesco Martucci) have left as a dowry to this complete restaurant-pizzeria like few others. Quality is not in the name, but in the dish: as Florentines, we hope that Sophia Loren will soon reverse the trend and not convert into a place only for tourists.
- The rich menu, the splendid location, the enormous potential
- Fried too greasy, pizzas that do not make the signature they bring, service in improvement but still insufficient