Franco Pepe
Italy
Long family tradition
Franco Pepe represents the third generation of a family of bakers. His grandfather started the business in 1938, with an operating license granted by the Potestà. Since then, not even a wartime managed to interrupt the work. Pepe’s grandfather continued to bake, authorized to give the ration of 150 g of bread upon presentation of the card.
Franco Pepe learned everything he could from his father, Stefano, who used to spend days in the local countryside picking fresh ingredients like oregano and mushrooms to put on top of pizza. He made his pizza with no scales, recipes, machinery, or ready-made ingredients involved. Franco watched his father create it from scratch thousands of times over. Thanks to that he didn’t need to write anything down to learn how the dough should feel when it was ready.
The mastery of Pepe in Grani
With the experience of two generations behind him, born from the inspiration of a new vision of pizza, Pepe in Grani opened in 2012. It quickly became a place where experimentation, craftsmanship, hospitality, training, and attention to the surrounding area meet. A project that has been enriched over the years, based on the passion for dough, for a disk of pasta that tells the flavors of the Upper Caserta area.
“Responsibility is the cornerstone from which the evolution of a project starts. It means training, working on a product that is not only good but also healthy. It means being responsible for the customer, and hospitality. Therefore, Pepe in Grani is not supposed to be a pizzeria but a project based on the use of our local products.”
The ingredients used to make the pizzas come almost exclusively from these local suppliers. The pizzaiolo uses his own, unique blend of flours. His mastery allowed him to win the Pizza Award, a Special Award of The Best Chef in 2021 and 2022. In 2023, he got the title of The Best Pizza Chef – being number one on the list of the best Pizzaioli by The Best Chef.
Instagram: @francopepeingrani @pepe_ingrani
Restaurant website: https://www.pepeingrani.it/
Restaurant address: Pepe in Grani, Vico S.Giovanni Battista, 3 – 81013 – Caiazzo (CE) Italy
