La citta verticale- "the vertical city"

They finally arrived in the vertical city of Naples and Positano. The chef's keep saying how beautiful the coast is (pictures to follow soon.) Their faces are filled with smiles and bellies filled with the freshest seafood and pizzas. This is the most important day of their adventure because it is the day they meet the creators and see the Acunto ovens that are being handcrafted for the new restaurant. Mr. Acunto is 3rd generation and talks about "family tradition" which is the theme of this Italian trip. It's a family run business and they only make 100 ovens a year for the entire world!! It's a three week process to make the ovens. First the base of the oven is created using steel, molded into the shape of a square. Concrete is added first to create somewhat of a circular shape. They fill this circle with wet sand and pack it tightly. They place a layer of rock salt over the top to keep the moisture out and then place clay stones on top of that. These stones will be the base where they actually cook the pizzas on. Four hundred individual bricks will be placed around the steel base and clay stone top to make it into a dome. The oven will be carefully wrapped and shipped out of the Napoli port. This is one of the world's largest ports and is where most of the importing/exporting is done. When the beautiful, handcrafted ovens arrive in Winter Park, Florida they will have to be cured. It takes about three weeks of burning the wood in the ovens at 400 degrees Celsius all day to break them in. We are so thankful to the family for their time and dedication to the craft. We will certanly enjoy the fruits of their labor with the authentic pizza back home in the new restaurant. Pictures of pizza tasting and the coast tomorrow! Ciao!




Barto the tour guide for Cargo and McGlamery (sorry your name is spelled wrong chef) haha!