Excellent Pizza Found In Joo Chiat Condo — And It's Made By An Italian Bag Designer

In all honesty, our first impression of Antonio — born in the Veneto region of Italy to a mum from Sardinia and dad from Abruzzo — was that he was a bit of a scatterbrain. The man forgot our reservation and tried to get us to reschedule it just two days before dinner when we texted to reconfirm it (we insisted on sticking to the date as planned). And he knocked over a jug of water at our table during the course of our meal.

All this, we later learn, is just the by-product of having to multitask, prepping numerous dishes while also running a... bag biz (see below). Occasional skittishness aside, Antonio is an easy-going, generous host. When he's more relaxed post-dinner, he proves an interesting conversationalist: his knowledge of his native cuisine is impressive. Moreover, he boasts an intriguing background. He and his affable Singaporean Chinese wife own a line of “modular”, made-in-Italy casual-chic bags called Hoola Hoola. Although the brand is less than a year old, it’s already sold in malls like Metro Paragon and The Centrepoint.

Antonio and his missus create the rather attractive bags with the help of a designer in Italy. They’re crafted there with materials like leather and a patented washable foam. Accessories such as straps are exchangeable, so each bag can sport several different looks. Besides selected malls and their retail shop at II2 Katong, the bags, which range from $130 to over $400 each, are sold via their website www.hoolahoola.com/.

Our usually too-cool-for-school photographer liked them so much that he excitedly says he plans to buy one.

Interestingly, before Antonio began cooking and hosting strangers in his apartment, he ran a food blog called ‘Foodie Ah’ (www.foodieah.com). He explains of the amusing name: “I find that most Singaporeans use ‘ah' more than 'lah', actually!’ But photographing and documenting his restaurant meals came to an end because “I started out blogging about the meals I paid for myself. Then one day, I was hosted by a restaurant and I didn't like its food. Yet I couldn’t write what I really thought as I was hosted. So that made me quit blogging”.

Perhaps most surprising of all is the fact that Antonio used to be a video game programmer for nearly a decade, two of which were spent working for Sony Psygnosis (a joint venture between the Japanese giant Sony and an English video game company). He was part of the team behind PC car racing game Screamer back in 1995.

So he relocated to London to  develop software for trading systems at Credit Suisse, then later its Singapore outpost eight years ago. Colour us impressed. 

It was here that he met his future wife. Why quit the lucrative world of computers to sell bags? Says Antonio: “Being an IT developer is a creative process, much like designing bags and cooking. Plus, my wife wanted to do it! So this biz is just another form [of expressing my creativity]”. 

Antonio has been an avid home cook for 17 years. He has hosted countless dinner parties for friends, who’d rave about his cooking. And friends of those pals would ask if they could pay to dine at his home too. “And that’s how Casa Nostra started last July,” explains Antonio simply.

He does most of the food prep himself in his modestly-sized kitchen, though his wife helps out occasionally.  

“I started off baking bread before I gradually moved on to pizzas," shares Antonio. "It's not something I [deliberately] decided on — you naturally specialise in what you're good at, and you're good at what you like. Mastering pizza-making takes a long time. You have to consider the texture, smell, appearance and openness of the crust as well as flavour profile for its toppings.

He adds: "I learned how to make pizzas from cookbooks, and through YouTube videos. Yes, my parents cook well, so you could say I was influenced by them, but most of my recipes are adapted through my own experimentation”.

“I imported this from Italy. I think it cost more to ship over to Singapore than to actually buy it!” The gas-fired oven (because cooking with wood in a condo isn’t allowed) which costs a mid-range four-figure sum, goes up to a super hot 480°C and cooks Antonio’s pizzas in just 60 to 80 seconds. Beside it sits an equally hulking Weber grill for searing other dishes like steaks and seafood.

Casa Nostra has an extensive, professional-looking menu on its website. For at least $120, you get a choice of two appetisers, two or more pizzas, a pasta, a main course (or two) and a dessert. But things are pretty flexible here — feel free to request for more or less of a certain course if you wish. There’s a minimum of eight guests per booking — we suggest you stick to this number, otherwise the table might feel cramped.  

The first floor of Antonio's home, where the dining room is located, is compact but stylishly furnished and comfortable. 

So, Antonio specialises in Neapolitan pizza — but what is it, exactly? Pizza as we know it today is believed to have been created in Naples, Italy. However, Neapolitan pizza is quite rare. It's mostly found only in Naples, or the odd specialist pizza restaurant elsewhere in the world (Tokyo is the exception — there's a serious Neapolitan pizza wave there and some say their pies are even better than those in Italy because of the obsessive Japanese penchant for making something even better than the original). 

We suspect this is because of the delicate nature of the Neapolitan pie. Its dough is softer than the crispier, largely Roman-style pizza that's commonly found everywhere. So the Neapolitan pizza's crust starts to sag and soften soon after it's out of the oven, making it inconvenient to serve at its best. It's topped with just a few simple ingredients like tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and basil, preferably from the Campania region of Italy (where Naples is the capital city). It’s then traditionally cooked in a mega hot wood-fired oven for less than two minutes. Because of the tender dough, coupled with the amount of tomato sauce and cheese on it, the centre of the pie tends to be ‘soggier’ than the crunchier pizzas we’re more accustomed to today — meaning you’ll have to eat it with a fork and knife, not your fingers.

We admit it took us a while to appreciate the delights of an authentic Neapolitan pizza — we were initially unexcited by the juicy-in-the-middle crust that grew limp so rapidly, and its no-frills toppings when we first had it many moons ago at a restaurant in Singapore. We haven't made it to Naples yet to try the real thing, but after a recent mini tour of artisanal Neapolitan pizzerias in Tokyo (Savoy Azabu-Juban and Seirinkan were standouts), we're finally beginning to understand that a well-made one with an airily light, crackly-chewy edge is one of life's simplest — yet greatest — pleasures. 

“Funnily enough, I only had Neapolitan pizza for the first time in London when I was 23 years old — you can't really find Neapolitan pizza commonly in Italy unless you’re in Naples, shares Antonio. "I had many Neapolitan friends in London so I ended up eating their food most of the time. In my view, it's the best regional food in Italy,” he declares. 

The beauty of a Neapolitan pizza lies in the economy of its toppings as well as the fine-textured dough, which Antonio says is trickier to get right because of its higher moisture content and brief cooking time. Neapolitan dough is so soft it has to be handled gently — Antonio carefully stretches and pats his into shape on his trusty plastic table. Everything has to be done by hand — no rolling pin is used to make Neapolitan pizza. And no showy, gratuitous dough-flipping or tossing either, thank you.  

We’ll skip talking about the serviceable but unremarkable appetisers. Instead, let’s chat about the star dish here — the pizza, baby. Antonio’s dough is light and tender, with a moderately puffy rim that balloons when it’s hot out of the oven, then deflates ever so slightly upon cooling. Don't waste time snapping too many photos of this because its crust starts to sag and soften with every passing second (as is the norm for Neapolitan pizzas). The bread has a fragile, plush texture and warm rustic flavour from its soft Italian wheat flour. It's also blistered with char marks, which pop in the mouth to leave a toasty, slightly bitter perfume. Within this crisp-soft doughy border lies molten pools of succulent stracciatella cheese (these are actually shreds of cream-soaked buffalo mozzarella and what forms the core of a ball of burrata cheese) on a bed of intensely flavoured tomato sauce. 

“There’s nothing in the sauce besides raw and preserved tomatoes, I use a mix of cherry and San Marzano (the tomato from the Italian town San Marzano is like the Dom Pérignon of the tomato world). The pizza is then scattered with freshly chopped Sicilian Datterini tomatoes and basil leaves from Antonio’s garden.The bright acidity of the tomatoes and grassiness of the olive oil and herbs are mellowed by the milky cheese and faintly singed notes of the bread. What's missing is the smoky kiss from a wood-fired oven, but this is altogether still a treat to eat.

We prefer this Parma ham pizza to the burrata one because its base isn’t as damp from all that creamy burrata cheese. So the crust here stays crisper longer. "For the dough, I use 00 W300 Italian flour, water, salt and yeast as per "disciplinare" of DOC Neapolitan Pizza," says Antonio, referring to the rules and regulations set by culinary officials in Italy which declare what constitutes an authentic Neapolitan pizza. 

Its topping of cool, salty shaved ham counterpointed by piquant, nutty rocket leaves makes this super yummy.

While Antonio's pizzas are great, some of his pastas threaten to eclipse them. It’s mesmerising to watch Antonio create these rustic “guitar cut” strands using a traditional wired pasta cutter called the chitarra (the Italian word for 'guitar) and wooden rolling pin (a mattarello), both of which were bought in Italy.

He vigorously runs the rolling pin against a sheet of semolina flour dough atop the ‘strings’ and neat strips tumble out beneath, like freshly cut ribbons.

The noodles are impeccably made and cooked — the golden strands so springy and al dente they seem almost alive as they lounge in a deeply savoury San Marzano tomato sauce simmered with Italian sausage, pancetta (Italian belly bacon) and guanciale (cured pork cheek). The fatty, briny juices from the cured meats meld with the sweet-tart tomatoes to form a seductive cloak for the pasta. So incredibly delicious. “My grandmother used to cook this classic dish when I visited her in Abruzzo as a child,” reminisces Antonio, who reveals that he uses her recipe for the chitarra-cut spaghetti. This makes us want to fly to Abruzzo just so we can give nonna a kiss. 

This Sardinian speciality from Antonio’s mum’s hometown uses packaged dry spaghetti imported from Italy. While its texture is nicely toothsome, the dish's seasoning is the highlight here.

It’s tossed with shavings of cured mullet roe sac, called bottarga. The orange-yellow flakes imbue the noodles with a briny, umami punch.

A delicious back note of funk in the pasta not unlike milder belacan turns out to be a sprinkle of cured tuna sperm (only available in Italy and hand-carried back from a Sicilian fishing village by Antonio). A unique, clever way to add natural umami. 

A tangle of octopus, boiled then smouldered on Antonio’s barbecue grill so that it’s still tender but charred and smoky in all the right places. Served with simple boiled potatoes dressed with lemon juice, parsley and olive oil. One of the better octopus dishes around.

A rib-sticking, lip-smacking version of the classic Italian braised veal shank dish. It's the culinary equivalent of a warm hug on a cold day. The slabs of meat are first fried in butter, then simmered with sautéed veggies like onions, carrots and Antonio’s “secret veal stock” for three hours. The yielding meat and its hearty gravy are brightened with a spritz of lemon juice and zest. Very rich, super moreish. 

The veal stew is served with fluffy pancake-shaped polenta that’s amusingly sliced with a string.

Antonio uses pistachio paste from Sicily because he says the quality of the fresh pistachios in Singapore is middling. Just as we begin dinner, he dumps this together with milk, cream, “a couple of different sugars to balance the sweetness, and his “own mix of stabilisers from beans to achieve the right texture” into his gelato machine.

At the end of the meal, we’re rewarded with the satiny gorgeousness and maddeningly fragrant, nutty notes of the green gelato.   

Solid Italian home cooking that's ironically better than what’s found in many fancier restaurants in town. We love that Antonio is a food nerd who’s not just knowledgeable and fastidious about the authenticity of his recipes, but also creative enough to add his own spin to classic dishes. Dinner at his cosy condo doesn’t come cheap — but the ingredients used are superior, its preparation quite masterful and portions so generous that you may have to stumble away from the table in a food-induced coma, like we did. 

Visit www.casanostra.sg to view the full menu and to make a reservation.