The extraordinary bakeries of Puglia! Here are three that make good bread … but above all it's good for you!
The guide Bread and Bakers of Italy of Gambero Rosso has brought out a significant fact: in Italy water, flour and yeast they have become serious. The 36 professionals reviewed every day make choices of love, culture and health, all concentrated in a loaf of bread. Within 50 square kilometers, only the Puglia boasts three bakery samples recognized by the guide: Giuseppe Concordia, Luca Lacalamita and Marco Lattanzi. Who in twenty years, those in a few months, these bakers are devoting their lives to rewrite the taste and meaning of bread on the table.
Giuseppe Concordia
He is 53 years old and could be called a bread scientist without problems. Today talk about ancient grains it's a phenomenon you're getting used to, he did it twenty years ago: "At the conferences there were four of us talking about it." He, the only one in the Center South. The history of the Adriatic Bakery begins at the end of the nineteenth century. The great-grandfather of Concordia was the one who, after the Second World War, introduced the pan bauletto in the store. Today that same format is re-proposed with ancient grains, seeds and flours that have a main objective: to do people good.
Concordia is a real maniac of cereals, leavening, but above all of the nutritional value of the product. The change of course of the Adriatic Bakery was triggered by his curiosity and his allergies. «I started experimenting. At the beginning I did uneatable things. Then I started to study, to document myself . From there he began to compose an encyclopedic culture on grains, grinding and leavening, and their effects on the human body. "The one who makes the best bread does not win, but who does it good for health," says Concordia. His work blows away the zero km and it pleases the universities, which collaborate with him. At the Adriatic Bakery the Sicilian Tumminia, the Bolzano rye, the Khorasan wheat and the hard Apulian wheat (to name a few) are baked. Every day on the counter there are nineteen different types of bread, all made in Capurso's laboratory. Concordia operates every day in this detachment, which today boasts 194 certified organic products. His bread does not seek beauty at all costs, but it is good. Following his search for the good for man, pastry has long been made largely without milk, eggs, butter, sugar and margarine. Communicating bread and its importance in health remains an imperative. "First of all, you need to know the product you sell". explains Concordia. "The protective action of ancient grains on the intestinal villi must be told, motivating the choice of bread like mine. This action should not only be done in the store, but also in hospitals and kindergartens . In the future of bread there is great attention: "The market has changed, but for the better". All that remains is to do synergy, something that in a territory like Puglia is always a challenge.
Adriatico Bakery – Bari – via N. De Giosa, 113 – 0805247463
Marco Lattanzi
He is 36 years old and when they ask him what his job is, he says: "I make bread". He too has a history of emigration in reverse. From the hectic London has chosen to put new roots in Corato, in the province of Bari. The reason? Of course, love. With Valeria Bevilacqua in 2015 he built Panificio Il Toscano, putting old and new knowledge into practice. "I learned to make focaccia by watching my mother-in-law", Marco recalls. His professional career has led him to acquire articulated knowledge in London kitchens, converted without regret to feed a city where flour and bread making have always been in DNA. But this doesn't make selling bread "different" any easier. «Without thinking too much, we started. I knew what I wanted to do, even though I had never been an entrepreneur, "explains Marco. The raw materials to be used already existed in his knowledge. The special bread – what changes every day, stuffed with dried tomatoes, cheese, pistachios, dried figs or mortadella – was and still is the bait to invite customers to discover Lattanzi's oven. "My bread is personal, true, territorial, dynamic, never the same, but above all it tells stories".
There are fifteen different types of bread, breaded for a total of one quintal per day. Among these there is never a shortage of Braccetto, an essential local format, Casereccio, spelled bread, the inevitable Toscano. Then every day there are expressions of Marco's continuous research, such as Tra Nord and Sud, a format made with a mixture of soft, hard and ancient grains, which represent the whole of Italy. 100% rye bread is a must, which is very popular in the South. On the bench there is also the pizza with a shovel, which changes with the seasons, and the focaccia, originally stuffed, now simple with tomatoes. Panificio Il Toscano does not make croissants, but has dedicated a small space since the beginning to the Breakfast: biscuits, cakes, but also an international touch with brownies. According to Lattanzi in the future of bread there is the need to create greater awareness: "We must understand that there is no need to eat three slices of bread, one is enough, but good, done well and does not hurt". Furthermore, it takes diversity – of grains, formats, taste – a narrower gap between field and bread, as well as a synergy between producers and operators. "It is difficult to put our product on everyone's table, but for me the important thing is that there is bread, always".
Il Toscano Bakery – Corato – via Crocifisso, 34 – 392 1915829
Luca Lacalamita
Of Luca Lacalamita we know so much. After the glorious journey in many stellar kitchens and the eight years at the Enoteca Pinchiorri, the Apulian pastry chef decided to return home, to Trani, and live a neighborhood workshop experience. Thus began the adventure of Lula: Pane e Dessert, which in just four months won the Tre Pani from Gambero Rosso. A well-known face of Italian culinary criticism, he shrugs his back on his product and research without which there would be nothing of all that he and Maria Teresa Scaringi have built. In addition to the suppliers known during the Florentine years, the two new entrepreneurs went in search of producers of ancient grains, unmasking "prestidigitators" of raw materials and remaining faithful to the desire for ethical products.
Here the bread becomes digestible in the first place. To make about 40 quintals of bread daily, the processing is short so as not to develop too much gluten. The leavenings get longer. Large sizes are preferred, able to develop the important aromatic outfit more. The bread from Lula is beautiful, aesthetically elegant and significant. For example, the frontal motif symbol of the Cathedral of Trani is reproduced in the Rosette. But da Lula, conceived as a contemporary bakery, could not miss the desserts, all in harmony with seasonal fruits, as shown by the Tartelette with fruit and vegetables. The Millefoglie triumphs. Chocolate bread, an ingredient that has a dedicated room in Lacalamita's laboratory, is the ideal meeting point between the art of baking and that of pastry. In the room, next to the sales counter, there is a small room where you can stop to taste a coffee (to make yourself) and a croissant pasta, or to participate in meetings with the producers chosen by Lula. Those who buy Luca Lacalamita's bread come back, sure to have found the taste of the past. But it doesn't come back every day, there's no need for it. The owner of the shop himself explains how to keep the bread: just a cloth, just like in the old days. The future of bread according to Luca Lacalamita is made of communication, identity and synergy on the territory.
Lula: Bread and Desserts – Trani – course Matteo Renato Imbriani, 104 – 0883 1985571
Text by Stefania Leo
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