Da Pietro pizzeria owner on importance of keeping authenticity
Ten years ago, Petr Soukal set out to open a business selling speciality food items imported from Italy. After the success of the store in his hometown of Plzeň, Soukal decided to open the first location of Da Pietro, a pizzeria specializing in Neapolitan style pies, in Prague. Two weeks ago, the second location of Da Pietro opened its doors in Prague’s Vinohrady district. I was curious about how this Czech native fostered such a passion for Italian cuisine, and stopped by the pizzeria to find out more.
“It was exactly ten years ago, I was deciding what I wanted to do. I already loved Italy and Italian food, so it was my idea to open a little shop with Italian foods in Plzeň. Ten years ago, I opened this shop in Plzeň, and I started to go to Italy every month to purchase products. I found my small suppliers and wine makers, and I would take things back to Plzeň.
“After two years, a friend of mine told me that I should open a pizzeria in the shop, but I really knew nothing about pizza. After some time, I thought ‘why not’, and decided we should open a Neapolitan pizzeria, because no one was making it in Plzeň at the time. My friend and I went to Naples and tried famous pizza across the area, and after two months I went to Naples to learn how to make pizza.”
I can imagine that authenticity is super important to make a good Neapolitan pizza when you aren’t based in Naples. How do you maintain this authenticity?
“As I started to create my product, I always wanted to keep making it better. I’ve had many different kinds of training for making pizza, for example I’ve taken classes specializing in making dough. For the ingredients, we always went to Italy to meet with the suppliers so we really know them. Now, we have almost 20 suppliers, small farmers, and producers of things like mozzarella di bufala, parmigiana, and pistachios from Sicily. We have 17 wine makers, and we work with everyone directly.
“The first thing is the ingredients. We start with authentic ingredients from artisans. That’s one way we keep authenticity.”
How has the customer reception been?
“Loads of people used to come to Plzeň from Prague for the pizza. I think they liked the way we were doing it there. Now we opened here in Prague, and we hope everyone will like it here. We’re trying our best to keep the quality up, and always make it better.”
Why did you open in Plzeň instead of Prague first, because Prague as a city has quite a demand for different foods from different cultures?
“I’m from Plzeň, and I wanted to start the business in my home city. But we see that the markets are completely different in Prague and in Plzeň. But we started in Plzeň because we didn’t know anything about the business at the time, and three years later we had the idea to open another location in Prague.”
If you had to pinpoint one key to success, what would it be?
“It’s the authenticity of the ingredients. We’ve chosen the most complicated way to do things, by importing everything directly. It’s complicated logistically – but it’s the way to present the real products to people. Many of our producers make quality not quantity, and we want to show our customers these real products.”
