Authentic Neapolitan Pizza

John Corsi the owner of Cellar 849 decided to add a wood burning pizza oven to the winery so he could make the kind of pizza he longed for but couldn’t find in anywhere in Michigan. He started with an Italian built wood-burning, domed, stone oven able to cook at a temperature of a balmy 900 degrees. He wanted guests to feel like they were being treated to the warmth and comfort of a close friend’s home, so he placed the oven at the heart of Cellar 849’s interior.

Since there isn’t a place in the world where pizza is more ingrained in the culture than Naples, Cellar 849 utilizes the same centuries-old techniques that Neapolitan masters use to create a truly authentic pizza. The world’s finest San Marzano tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, traditional Neapolitan dough, highest quality ingredient and a flame-blackened blisters on the crust form the foundation of the pizza, but the true craft is in mastering the wood fired oven.

San Marzano Tomatos

San Marzano tomatoes, a variety of plum tomatoes, are considered by many chefs to be the best sauce tomatoes in the world. The story goes that the first seed of the San Marzano tomato came to Campania in 1770, as a gift from the Kingdom of Peru to the Kingdom of Naples, and that it was planted in the area that corresponds to the present commune of San Marzano. They come from a small town of the same name near Naples, Italy, and were first grown in volcanic soil in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. The bulk of San Marzano tomato growers in Naples are families, each with their own little plot, maybe a quarter of an acre. And you see hundreds if not thousands of them all over Naples.

Caputo Flour

Simply put, Antico Molino Caputo makes the world’s best pizza flour. Hand grown in the valley of Campania, the flour is harvested each fall and then stored until the warm months of June and July when it is taken from it’s hull. Human hands shuck the wheat and allow the centuries old mill to press and grind the finely culled grain into a flour that can be found only in this area of Italy.

Wood Burning Oven

Our Italian built wood burning oven is the heart and soul of our pizza’s. You see a wood-fired oven, we see a flaming beast. Of course, we say that with the utmost respect and affection, because it’s the scorching heat this oven generates that makes the pizzas taste so great. These ovens are hard to tame, but even harder not to love. A true Italian wood oven is a dynamic living thing, constantly in flux. The way the oven stores the heat, the smoky flavor imparted on the pizza from the wood, and the speed at which it cooks are all key to producing a Neapolitan style pizza. Having said that the essence and potential of a wood oven are diminished unless you start with the right dough; the one we use is deliberately conceived with this cooking environment in mind, fresh mozzarella and the finest, freshest products.