The Costa del Sol is once again making waves on the national gastronomic scene. Italian pizza chef Marco Giornetti, who has been based in Mijas for over five years, has secured second place in the 5th Spanish Gourmet Pizza Championship, a contest seeking the best contemporary pizza in the country. For the event, Marco presented “a contemporary Neapolitan pizza with a roasted pepper base, Gorgonzola, Pecorino Romano DOP, caramelised red onion, spicy ‘spianata’ (a typical southern Italian salami), and finished with stracciatella”, explained the chef.
- La segunda mejor pizza de España está hecha con una base de pimiento asado, gorgonzola, pecorino, cebolla morada caramelizada, ‘spianatta’ picante y stracciatella. |
- A. Lago.
The competition brought together more than 150 pizza chefs from across the country for its fifth national edition, with the grand final held in Madrid. On that stage, Giornetti shone with an innovative proposal that earned him the silver medal.
Ingredients
With this second-place finish, Giornetti has established himself as one of the competition’s major revelations, positioning his restaurant, Spiga, among the leading names in contemporary pizza natiomwide. Located at 4 Calle Jaramar in El Chaparral, the restaurant blends authentic Italian produce with the freshness of local ingredients. According to the pizzaiolo, “I try to source most of the ingredients from Italy and the freshest produce from here in Spain; it is all local and zero-mile, such as the vegetables we use, which are all from the area".
- En Spiga, la mayoría de los productos son elaborados de manera artesanal. |
- A. Lago.
Travelling the world
After spending a decade in Australia, travelling the world for five years as a pizza chef on a cruise ship and working in various restaurants in Elviria and Marbella, Giornetti, a native of the Tuscan town of Cecina, finally managed to fulfil his dream: opening his own restaurant. “It was a dream I had since I was a child”, says Marco, “because when you make pizzas for other restaurants, you realise that people actually visit those places for your product”. The chef says that “this is a gift that can be learnt, but it’s a ‘white art’ (arte bianca). That’s why I said: I have to try and open my own restaurant. And here, in El Chaparral, I found the place”.
Spiga Restaurant
As for Spiga’s culinary offering, Marco explains that everything is handmade: from the pasta to the pizza dough and the desserts, all prepared in the Italian style by him and his team.
The establishment offers “typical Italian cuisine: fresh pasta, which we make almost daily, and we don’t have main courses: just pasta and pizza. We prepare the dough with 48-hour fermentation and only use Italian products”, detailed the chef, also highlighting that “the desserts are all homemade. We only buy the base ingredients and then prepare everything artisanally".
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