May the 28th, 2024 – The third Pizza Festival Zagreb has impressed the crowds with the world’s most beloved dough-based dish. Here’s what we loved – and what we’ll definitely be returning for more of.
The day finally arrived! Mouthwatering pizzas have returned to Strossmayer Square! The third consecutive Pizza Festival Zagreb welcomed visitors on Monday, May the 27th, and offers a truly rich and varied selection of top gourmet pizzas.
The irresistible flavours and aromas of over 35 types of pizza, pasta and desserts (not to mention the amazing cocktails) are being offered from the 11 houses of this unique festival dedicated to the most famous dish in the world.
A walk through this Zagreb square gave us the opportunity to travel all over Italy: from Rome to Naples, all the way to Palermo, Syracuse and Messina. We heartily enjoyed the wealth of flavours, melodies and an unsurpassed dolce far niente atmosphere.
Lovers of modern napoletana pizzas with higher hydration and double dough fermentation will be delighted with the offer from Al Dente this year. Don’t miss out on the gorgeous pizza Bianca with mortadella and pistachio. Anyone who likes a thick, fluffy Sicilian-style pizza can enjoy it to their heart’s content at the Rougemarin house, which offers as many as six pizzas inspired by southern Italy. It’s difficult for us to decide what we were more impressed by.
We found a novel pizza made on Bread Club’s sourdough dough at Tutto Passa and fell in love with their Primaverile and Speciale pizzas with truly creative flavour combinations such as guanciale with pumpkin cream, Pecorino and rosemary.
We took a short break from pizza by visiting the Oui Chef On Wheels house, where we watched with pleasure how they prepared Cacio e Pepe pasta in a huge roll of Grana Padano cheese. We decided to go for the variant with grated black truffle and we absolutely didn’t regret it.
We didn’t even attempt to say no to the perfectly named Baby Lasagna, followed by some excellent cannoli filled with Pag curd, candied citrus peel and pistachio.
The team from Pizza Social Club charmed us again this year with their perfectly crispy pizzas with a fuller edge, which is a stylistic combination of napoletana and romana. We tasted two of their novelties, Parmigiana and Bianca. Once again, we’re struggling to decide which one is better, but if you have to choose only one, the combination of truffle riccotta, flor di latte mozzarella, boujole, leeks and crispy capers on the Bianca pizza will leave you breathless!
Talented mixologist Marin Nekić gave us an ideal break halfway through the tasting of pizzas with TABASCO® sauces. Even if we thought we knew a lot about spiciness, we learned how to pair TABASCO® sauces on pizza and thus enhance their original flavours even more.
Another surprise awaited us right after that, because we jumped from Italy to Zagorje, more precisely to Konjščin, in just a few steps. The Zagyland house represents pizzas from Zagorje and they have every reason to be proud of their creations. Here, everything is done at a truly top level, from the dough to the baking and fillings – there’s even tuna pizza on offer.
At Pizza Fritta, we satisfied our desire for this Neapolitan speciality, which enjoys cult status among the local population. It’s made by placing the filling between two layers of pizza dough and frying it in hot oil until the crust is golden and crispy. Here, along the way, we learned that there’s a special technique for eating fried pizza: first you need to tear off the top to release the steam from the filling, and then the pizza is eaten in a certain order, so that in each bite – you get the perfect ratio of filling and dough.
We were also extremely curious to taste Pizza Re, prepared by the brothers Hrvoje and Jurica Cvetko. Their dough ferments for at least 48 hours and is really soft, airy and light. Here, too, we were amazed at the high quality ingredients, and we were won over by their pizza made with prosciutto, cherry tomatoes, arugula, Grana Padano cheese, basil, olives and aceto cream.
For the very end, we went to the legendary team from Zadar – Poma and Picnic, who delighted us once again this year with their sourdough focaccia and extremely creative cocktails. Unable to decide between the roast beef and the pistachio focaccia, we had both – and we’d do it again in a heartbeat! The situation is similar with Ivan Karačić’s cocktails, which never cease to amaze us. This time, he succeeded with the Roza, a cocktail based on gin, strawberries, rose wine and rosehip vinegar from the island of Pašman near Zadar.
It was more than enough tasting for the first day, but we saw more pizzas that intrigued us, and we’ll definitely be coming back. We plan to dedicate one of these days and evenings to enjoying the excellent atmosphere and Italian canzones and Ginglebells cocktails. Just for Pizza Festival Zagreb, they’ve prepared Basil Smash gin, Basil spritz-sparkling wine combined with basil and classic Bellini. We also want to taste summer in a glass in the form of Passion fruit Mojito.
We just have to decide whether we’ll indulge in these pleasures with the Staropramen Silent Movie Night, which will bring the audience a screening of Fellini’s classic La Dolce Vita on Tuesday, May the 28th, or whether we’ll try our hand at the reliably entertaining Food Quiz on Thursday.
After all that, we could also go to a painting workshop by Pinelli and Vino. We’re definitely coming for the weekend as well, because we really want to make our own pizza-themed t-shirt with the help of ZG Street Art creatives to make it easier to welcome the next Zagreb Pizza Festival.
